


Kaleidoscope

by Otheliame



Series: The Lion's Roar [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Body Dysphoria, Canon Trans Character, Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everything Hurts, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Heavy Angst, Humor, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Matt Holt has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Near Death Experiences, Other, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Physical Abuse, Polynesian Hunk (Voltron), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexuality Crisis, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Trans Character, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Trans Male Character, Whump, holy fuck there are gonna be so many, i know this looks bad but hang in there, my friend told me I need to tag this with it too so here you go:, tags will continue being added when i remember them, this is literally the longest slow burn you will ever experience like you don't even know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2019-10-26 18:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 382,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17751254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otheliame/pseuds/Otheliame
Summary: The Paladins of Voltron have their work cut out for them when it comes to liberating the universe from beneath the Zarkon's thumb. They've grown into their newfound positions, bonded with one another as a team, and they've become a force to be reckoned with. But many trials await the group, their path to each victory will be hard fought, and sometimes at great cost, but despite it all the question remains the same: what will the Paladins sacrifice to protect the known world?---**This is a continuation of the first book in the Lion's Roar series: "The White Paladin". If you haven't read that first, then I would seriously suggest doing so otherwise the events and references that occur in this book will make absolutely no fucking sense and that's a promise.This is incredibly self indulgent for me, a continuous project that's solely for my enjoyment but considering the amount of effort I'm putting into this I might as well share it with the world. I hope you like it, I pour my heart and soul into this shit.**





	1. The Dream Work

**Author's Note:**

> At any point each work is subject to change and alterations. I'll have it written here what works are up to date and (probably) final.  
> **All chapters currently up to date, but subject to change**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Castle of Lions has taken quite a beating. From the battles fought, the constant jumping and the miraculous withstanding of the particle barrier, many repairs and adjustments need to be made, but the Paladins of Voltron's work never ceases. Now that Shiro's re-established his bond with the Black Lion, the team no longer fears Zarkon descending upon them in a black swarm of death, and with this freedom they've set their new course to their next, and perhaps most important, set of allies in their battle against the Galra Empire: The Blades of Marmora.  
> However, with the amount of repairs Coran needs to make to the teludav, it'll take about a week for the team to arrive to their destination, the longest stretch of time the team will face without the promise of combat. They've only been together for just over 2 weeks now, and with an additional week to add under their belt.  
> A lot can happen in the span of a week, especially when the fate of the universe's weight on the paladins' shoulders grows heavier by the day.  
> \---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> I fiNALLY finished CHAPTER 1 so let's get this goddamn party STARTED.  
> Hope you enjoyed the White Paladin, bc that's a necessity to understand what the fuck is going on in this bitch.  
> Let me know your thoughts! I'd love to hear what you think.  
> **

I bolt upright when I hear the shrill cries of the Castle’s alarm systems going off. Immediately my mind thinks the worst as I practically fall out of bed with the loud start,  _ shit, Zarkon, shit, armor, bayard, shit, lions, go _ . As I scramble to my feet, slamming the button in my room to open the door, I can hear Allura’s voice shouting over the Castle’s com system,  _ “Everybody up! Zarkon is attacking!”  _

I can barely think anything other than  _ get to the bridge _ as I grab my armor from the floor and pull it on with wild tugs, shoving my helmet under my arm and breaking into the hallway in record time. Immediately I see the others in similar states of dishevelment, Hunk is rubbing his eyes as he staggers out with his helmet in one hand like a child holding a teddy bear, Pidge is jumping up and down as she pulls on her boots, Lance’s eyes are wide and he still has his sleep mask on his forehead as an amusing contrast to his armor, and Keith’s already sprinting down the hall towards the bridge with his bayard at hand. I take off after him to see what’s going on as Allura’s voice echoes again over the com system,  _ “The Castle’s about to be destroyed!”  _

As we collectively break onto the bridge, Allura stands in the central circle with her hands hovering over the holographic panels before her, the pillars she uses to pilot the Castle are already receding into the ground. Shiro stands beside her with his arms behind his back, peering over her shoulder, but what’s more drawing to me is the quiet. Outward and beyond the glass, we’re still surrounded by empty space, dark and endless… but not a single Galra ship in sight. 

Lance, who seems to have picked up on this as well, steps beside me as he drops his helmet to the ground, “So,  _ ‘the Castle’s getting destroyed,’ _ huh?” 

Pidge rubs her eyes as she hugs her helmet to her chest, pouting now that we’re out of imminent danger, “Aw  _ man _ ! I was _ finally _ getting such good sleep…”

Allura glances over her shoulder at us where she stands typing at the holographic panel, and I can just barely see her flash an apologetic looking smile before she returns to the screen, flashes of Altean words flying by in a dizzying array like shooting stars. Shiro turns to face us with a serious expression in lieu of Allura, his arms behind his back in a militant fashion as he addresses us, “I’m sorry for waking you up like this, but it’s important that we stay sharp even when we’re not under attack; Zarkon may not be here now, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared for when he is.” 

As the situation slowly hits me I rub my eyes with my free hand, the other resting my helmet against my hip.  _ Okay. This is what we’re doing now. Ngh. _

To my left, Hunk hangs his head and pouts sadly at Shiro like a dejected puppy, “So does that mean we aren’t taking a vacation while we’re flying to the Blade of Marmora’s base?” 

Shiro sternly shakes his head. Lance groans beside me with a dramatic huff, but otherwise doesn’t speak as Shiro meets our collective gaze and continues without pause, “We need to keep focused on the mission, and that means we always have to be at our best.” He lets his arms fall as he approaches us as a group, gesturing with his chin towards the elevators, “Get to your lions. I want to start off with some flight drills and combat simulations before we head to the training deck.” 

With a loud yawn, I trudge towards my elevator and rub the sleep from my eyes with my free hand. Over my shoulder, Hunk moans in complaint, “Aww, man! Is this just gonna be like back on Arus?” 

Once my elevator door closes, I pull my helmet on, the nullifying silence seeming to encompass the small space and melting into white noise in my head. The abrupt wake up in junction with the continuous hum of the Castle’s thrusters makes my ears ring a little, and it takes me until I reach my lion’s hanger to really get it to ease.  _ I’m definitely regretting the late night with Hunk last night. _

_ I guess I shouldn’t complain; Shiro’s right, we need to be always on the alert... just in case. I don’t want Zarkon to catch us with our pants down, that’s for damn sure.  _

I stride up to my lion where she lays with her head between her paws, but right before I walk in I hear Pidge suddenly call through the com, “Wait, Hunk, Will, I still have your stones in my hanger! You should put them on so we can see how they operate while we’re training.

“Good idea, Pidge.” Shiro answers. I sigh and stumble away from my lion, heading over to the communal hanger. Pidge hands off the Yellow Lion’s stone to Hunk, and when I approach she hands the White Lion’s to me. When my hands wrap around the chain a fresh course of energy soaks into me, like I just drank an espresso shot. Hunk looks at his stone with wide eyes and then he looks up at me with a similar expression and I realize he probably felt the same.

“Wow. I think I’m awake now.” Hunk mumbles before flashing me a grin. I shake my head with a snort before I turn and head back into my hanger.

Silver’s jaws part slightly as I approach to widen the gap between her teeth for me to step through. I walk up the stairs while dragging my feet, and as I sink into the pilot’s chair I have to fight the urge to close my eyes and fall asleep all over again. 

“Hey, Hunk, Will?” I open my eyes as Pidge’s voice comes to me over the com, “Do your pendants do anything when you get into your lion?” 

“Uh… Maybe? I don’t know, what’s yours doing?” Hunk answers quickly with a note of curiosity. 

“I don’t really know. It just kinda buzzed or something, and then my chest got really warm... I don’t know, it’s really weird. ” Pidge reports, her voice is tired but her tone is matter of fact, “Actually, speaking of that, Shiro, can I cop out of Paladin training so I can run some tests on our medallions? Then we can discover what they’re really for and what they really do.” Her words spike in excitement with a sudden burst of energy that comes from potentially sitting out, “And I think I have an idea on what to test first.”

“I know that that’s important, Pidge, but so is keeping our basics skills honed.” Shiro answers in a paternal manner, but after a moment he adds, “Let’s wait until after this exercise, then you can go when the rest of us hit the training decks.” 

“Aww, man! Now I  _ really  _ wish Blue would give me a rock.” Lance complains with a dramatic whine over the com. 

“Training with our lions will help us bond with them more, which is how we’ll be able to get our own stones, Lance.” Keith’s voice is husky and drawn out, he seems to enunciate on his syllables more than usual. Probably a sign that he’s tired. 

“Well, Pidge just said that she doesn’t know what they’re for, so maybe the medallions aren’t from how close bonded we are to our lions! Like, Shiro’s tight with the Black Lion now, and he doesn’t have a stone, and I know that Blue and I have been best friends from day one, so…!”

I tap the remote access to my hanger, furrowing my eyebrows as I let my gaze wander around our surroundings as my lion and I ease out of the hanger. 

I’ll never get over how strange it is to be surrounded by so much  _ nothing.  _ There only thing gripping me to knowing exactly where I am and how much space I’m taking up is only kept relative by the size of my lion, but even from within such a large contraption I still can’t help feel so, so small.  _ This is why I never liked the idea of going to space. I already felt small and insignificant back on Earth, why would I need to feel that on a cosmic level? Sucks, but what can you do, right? _

“Alright, team, let’s focus.” My lion and I wade through the emptiness of space as Shiro recalls my attention to the present. I look to my left and right and see our lions as we filter from the Castle, up ahead the Black Lion leads the pack. Innately we congregate around Shiro as he begins to give instructions, “I’ve asked Allura to use the Castle’s defense systems for our training exercise. The main goal is to practice maneuvering in our lions and improving our flight skills. Once we’ve done that-” 

“Sorry to interrupt, but-” Hunk gulps, his voice a little tense over the com, “Did you say the defense systems?” 

I roll back my head a little, leaning heavily against the back of my seat, “ _ Ugh! _ This  _ is _ gonna be just like Arus.” 

I can hear Lance smirking through the com, “Well, at least time there isn’t any gravity, so you can’t drop me again!” 

I snicker and roll my eyes as Shiro sighs with a note of exasperation, “Alright Allura, we’re ready!” 

“Copy that!” Allura’s voice is stark within my helmet, and with the affirmation I turn my lion towards the Castle in preparation. The particle barrier activates in one wide ripple, encompassing the Castle like it’s the center of a illuminous marble.

Beams of white and neon blue light zap from the particle barrier at random points along its surface, projecting outwards like an aggressive pincushion. Quickly I push Silver to action, dodging off to the side right as Pidge shouts, “On your left!” 

“Heard!” I shout back as I weave underneath the Green Lion just before we collide and press away from the Castle at a diagonal. I keep an eye over my shoulder at the projecting beams, putting us at a larger distance so I have a few extra seconds of response time.  _ Okay, this isn’t so bad, I think I can handle this- _

“Initiating honing signatures!” Allura calls, and with a sudden turn the projecting fire from the Castle ceases in its supposedly random pattern. Before I can take a breath the bolts renew their attack but with far more accuracy than before; pushing downwards on the controls I force Silver off and racing parallel with the Castle with the firing shots in my wake.  _ Well, this makes my run away from the Castle all but moot _ . I twist Silver to the side as a blast aims for our muzzle and with a press of my controls we roll as another beam attempts to zap us while we’re flying through our momentum from the first dodge. 

_ Oh my god. I just did a barrel roll! Without crashing! I don’t remember ever doing that with near as much success- Oh fuck another beam- Okay, shit, focus- _

I don’t know just how long this continues up until Shiro abruptly barks, “Alright team, on me, form Voltron!” 

“While dodging the beams?!” Lance cries nervously. I twist the White Lion about with my head craned to keep the impending beams emitted from the Castle in my line of sight as I search for the Black Lion, my arms aching from the continuous motions.

I spot Shiro just off to my right, so I fly Silver in a zig zag to dodge blasts while honing onto his position. 

“We have to be ready to form Voltron regardless of the situation.” Shiro replies with a stressed tone, one that gives me a mental pause until suddenly I hear Pidge let out a loud yelp over the com. I loop through the air to dodge another beam and call out, “Pidge? You alright?” 

_ “Grhhhhhhhh!”  _ Pidge outright growls into the com in what sounds like pain, and I watch as the Green Lion hurtles through space toward our position with her golden eyes aglow. Pidge begins to speak so fast I can barely keep up, “Okay, that was  _ weird  _ and  _ shitty!  _ My lion got hit earlier because I was slow and I got this image of like, the stone of my medallion and then another stone, a bigger one that’s like, in my lion or something and this feeling of like, protection, kind of like an offering or something so that we could have open barriers, so I was like ‘yeah, sure, no problem,’ but I didn’t realize that  _ this  _ is what it would do! My arm is literally  _ burning _ , I feel like I just got hit with a hot frying pan!”

I blink in surprise as I try to piece together what she just said before I gasp, “That sounds like what happened to me back on Arus, my lion showed me the same thi- shit!” I dodge my lion out of the way just in time as a shot from the Castle comes hurtling my way, cutting me off midsentence.

Hunk practically squeaks in a kind of funny manner, and I look up as I dodge to the side to see the Yellow Lion barrelling over my head, “I would love to talk about this more when we’re  _ not getting shot at! _ ” 

“On me! Form Voltron!” Shiro barks. I look below my lion and see the Black Lion plummeting, the others falling in formation behind him in perfect parallel with the Castle’s fire. I quickly speed up to take my place, and as soon as I do I feel the collecting twine of our essences reaching out toward one another. In this mental space I can find and fix myself against Pidge’s and Hunk’s easily, just like back on Taujeer, snatching then weaving our essences together with ease. Immediately I begin to feel a harsh burn in my right arm, a biting sort of pain like I got bit by a dog made of fire. I hiss a bit but hang onto them as I reach out for the other three, indistinct tendrils. But now, as I do so, I can feel one essence, Shiro’s essence, more tangibly than before. But, that’s really all I can decipher is that it’s Shiro. His string, his metaphorical outline is kind of… blurry, it’s not at all as easy to determine it’s him like it is for Pidge and Hunk, I didn’t even realize it was him until my own mind-whatever literally brushed against his. It’s hard to describe, feeling his essence is kind of like a bad interference on a call, like his tendril is a wavy signal going through a tunnel. 

_ ‘Ow! Dude, is that your arm? I can like, feel it like it’s mine, that hurts so bad!’  _

_ ‘Yeah, how the fuck do you think I feel?’ _

I furrow my eyebrows and touch my arm reflectively, only to be distracted as Hunk and Pidge’s thoughts melt into mine,  _ ‘Is that Shiro?’  _

_ ‘Yeah, that’s him alright; if we can feel him…’  _

I close my eyes and think cohesively to Pidge and Hunk,  _ ‘He said he established a better bond with the Black Lion, so that means he is probably able to join us in this headspace... but I don’t know, it’s kind of faint. Do you think he can hear us?’ _

_ ‘I can’t hear anyone but you two.’  _

“Evasive maneuvers!” Shiro decrees, cutting into our mental thoughts. It immediately forms a clear message in Hunk’s mind:  _ ‘Engaging thrusters!’  _

I activate the thrusters in Voltron’s back in junction with Hunk to avoid the oncoming blasts from the Castle. Together we soar past it, the blasts continuing to follow us with pinning cover fire. 

“Form shield!” Shiro calls over the com.

I can hear Pidge’s voice in my head,  _ ‘On it!’  _

I frown a little as Pidge snaps the shield into place, absorbing the impact of one of the shots from the Castle which results in an immediate, painful twinge in my right arm.  _ ‘Ow! Pidge!’  _

_ ‘Sorry, it does that when I move, do you want me to stop moving Hunk? Huh? Want me to just let the Castle hit us?’  _

_ ‘You’re mean when you’re in pain.’ _

I frown as I keep feeling nothing but radio silence coming from Shiro’s tendril; even though it’s clearly him, it’s like he’s on mute in a video call. I close my eyes and focus all my thoughts into a clear message,  _ ‘Shiro, can you hear us?’  _

“Let’s change the angle.” Shiro commands, “Legs, Will, engage into a downward spiral!” 

I twist Voltron’s thrusters to accommodate as we rush diagonally from the Castle, avoiding the oncoming fire with relative ease, even as the shots seem to grow faster and faster. 

_ ‘I don’t think he can hear you.’  _

_ ‘I’m gonna ask.’  _

I huff indignantly as I press against my controls,  _ ‘I just did that!’  _

Hunk ignores me, instead speaking verbally over the com, “Hey, uh, Shiro? Can you hear us right now?” 

Voltron steadies a little as we peel away from the Castle while dodging missiles from our back, I keep us going steady with my gaze out the rearview as Shiro replies in a slightly confused tone, “I hear you loud and clear, Hunk.” 

“No, I mean like-” 

“What he means to say is can you hear us in your head?” I cut in with an impatient edge in my voice I don’t bother to attempt to morph as I jerk my controls to the side to avoid another shot, “Like, can you hear us thinking at you?” I keep my gaze glued on the hologram to my right at the rearview of Voltron, keeping us out of fire from the attacking Castle. 

“... What? No.” Shiro replies in a somewhat incredulous tone.

“Well, okay, but like, can you sense us at all? Cause we can kind of sense you in our little web thingy, that’s why we thought you could hear us too.” Hunk’s voice climbs another octave for a few words as we barely avoid a shot from the Castle. 

_ “Can we focus on not getting shot and talk about your weird telepathy later?!” _ Lance’s voice is stressed and enunciated with a biting, high pitched edge. I adjust the thrusters as we strafe from side to side in the air, continuing to dodge the Castle’s fire while Pidge uses the shield to block any shots that make it our way. 

This continues on for quite some time, until my arms are completely rubber and my fingers ache from clenching the controls. 

_ ‘Oh man, this is hurting my shoulders like nothing else-’  _

_ ‘Tell that to my fucking arm, Hunk!’ _

_ ‘I wish we had breakfast! I’m so hun-gAH that was TOO close!’  _

_ ‘I’m twisting, Hunk, move with me!’  _ I think as I roll Voltron to the side to avoid a blast from the Castle, faster than usual with the added help from Voltron’s right foot. Suddenly, with a dull flash the Castle’s fire ends, the particle barrier falling like an inward, reverse ripple in a pond. I ease the power of our thrusters to a standstill, taking a relieved breath at the end of the exercise.

“Princess, why did you stop?” Shiro’s voice is ever so slightly out of breath from barking commands, yet something about it makes me frown. He sounds stressed, like continuing this exercise is as important as last minute studying for a final exam.

“I’m sorry Shiro, but we need to divert power to the teludav while Coran continues with testing the alignment and power distribution.” Allura responds in a charismatic tone over the com sets. 

_ “Good.” _ Pidge hisses in such a manner that it causes me to blink several times as we slowly dissolve into our individual lions, “My arm  _ hurts! _ ” 

“We know!” Hunk and I say in unison. 

“Let’s head back into the Castle,” Shiro’s voice sounds a little begrudging as he talks, but barely a hint; it’s more commanding than anything else. “Pidge, we’ll take a look at your arm when we get inside.” 

I hear Pidge grumbling under her breath as I head back towards the Castle with the other lions at my flank, I hit the remote access button and the doors slide open. 

I walk jerkily out of my lion, out of my hanger, and into the communal center as the others leave their lions to join me. My legs feel a bit wobbly and my arms ache from the constant movements of my lion’s controls but now that I’m up and moving it’s better. As we congregate, my vision immediately hones in on Pidge as she exits her hanger, cradling her arm right arm pressed tight against her chest. 

“How’re you feeling, Pidge?” Shiro asks as he lifts the visor off his helmet, his gaze is neutral yet his eyes flicker with worry beneath his close drawn brow. 

“I’ll be okay.” She shrugs her shoulder a little bit, letting her arm fall beside her quickly, like she just realized she was cradling it,  _ “‘Tis but a scratch.”  _

Keith crosses his arms where he stands just to Shiro’s right, his expression confused and questioning as he regards Pidge, “So, is this thing, our lions transferring damage… is that something all of our lions can do? Not just the White Lion?” 

Hunk pulls his helmet off his head with a rush of air, his ribbon tied around his forehead fluttering behind him as he gestures to Pidge, “Yeah, you mentioned that you got this vision of a rock inside your lion’s chest, right?”

Pidge nods, shrugging her shoulder like she’s stretching a sore muscle, “Yeah, it was… kind of weird, I’ve never had her asking me for anything before.”  She turns to look at me with a raised eyebrow, “You said the same thing happened to you, too?”

I nod, taking off my own helmet for some air circulation as I answer, “I think that our lions must have matching stones in their chests, like the stones that they gave us. My lion showed me on Olkarion that there’s this connection between our medallions, and that’s what allows for me to take damage for her, but also for her to transfer energy back to me.” I rest my helmet on my hip, flickering my gaze to Pidge’s arm. It doesn’t appear affected, but her armor is also covering the entire surface. Luckily it doesn’t look like it’s bleeding, otherwise that would come through the material of her flight suit. 

“So, the stones are generally able to transfer damage to us while fighting… but also they’ll be able to heal you if you need it.” Shiro murmurs thoughtfully, holding his chin in his hand with a pensive gaze glued to the floor. 

“Do you think they all can do that?” Hunk’s voice has a slight edge of nervousness to it, biting his lip and tapping his fingers together sheepishly as he glances between Pidge and I. 

“I guess we’ll have to see.” Shiro replies as his gaze lies squarely on Pidge, who reaches into the chestplate of her suit and clasps at the chain hanging around her neck. I can see a dull, lime colored light pulsing a reflection on the black material of her flight suit.

“Wait, hold on a second.” Lance cuts in with a few waves of his hands, fixing me with narrowed eyes and an accusing expression, “If your stone things can heal, then how come your lion didn’t heal you after you nearly died?” 

A sudden, deafening silence fills the room with such startling comparison that for a moment I wonder if I just out of the blue went deaf. I blink at him in surprise, and as his words fall forward his accusatory tone completely dies, instead his voice shifts and becomes rather shy and abashed all of a sudden as he adds, “You know... after we fought Zarkon?”

The silence is tangible. Slowly I shift my gaze to the others for some clue as to what is going on; Pidge and Hunk are both giving Lance accusing looks that I can’t quite decipher, the closest thing I can imagine is that’s what they’d look like if they were to catch him snitching, while Shiro’s gaze drops to the floor and stay there. Everything about Keith is tense; he looks exactly like a spring that’s been pressed down for too long and is going to explode upon being released. Lance seems to have realized this effect several seconds later and immediately his mouth clamps shut, his gaze flickering downward like an ashamed dog after tearing apart a couch cushion.

“Um,” I murmur, flickering my gaze between the others with absolute confusion written in my expression and my tone, “I’m sorry, I what?” 

The others faces quickly morph to ones of complete discomfort, no one is meeting my eyes, not even Shiro; he only closes his eyes and takes a slow breath like he’s meditating. 

Frustrated, I set my jaw and cross my arms, “What, did you all suddenly go mute?”

Pidge clears her throat then, her hand resting beneath the elbow of her injured arm as she finally meets my gaze from behind the rounded glasses resting on the bridge of her nose, “I think that the White Lion… I mean, all of our lions,... were really seriously weakened after that whole thing, breaking into Zarkon’s ship and… fighting him. Maybe the White Lion just didn’t have the energy to give in order to heal you.” 

Lance quickly nods, his mannerisms sparking like an amusement park ride coming to life as he claps sharply, “Well, that answers that question! So, now that all makes perfect sense-!”

My attention completely gives out, my gaze grows listless as I stare at a space just past Lance’s head. 

_ I nearly died? I seriously almost died after fighting Zarkon? I mean, I was in some serious, deep shit… I knew I definitely wasn’t alright. But I didn’t think…  _

_ Is that why I felt so wild and out of control after I got out of the pod? Is that why the others were treating me so gently afterward? _

_ Is that why Keith felt the need to come to my room and apologize to me? _

“Pidge, you should rest up that arm and work on analyzing Hunk and Will’s stones.” Shiro’s voice interrupts my wayward thoughts and snaps me back to the present, pulling my attention to him. Pidge steps towards Hunk and I with her hand out and wordlessly I take off my lion’s stone and drop it into her hand. Shiro’s expression is back to its usual neutrality, his gray eyes are stormy yet firm as he regards the team as a collective, “As for the rest of you, let’s hit the training deck and work with your bayards. After that, we’ll reconvene for some more training in Voltron.” 

The forms of my teammates start moving and on instinct I follow, but I can’t bring myself back to focusing on the present moment. I feel like this simple phrase grabbed my consciousness, balled it up and then defenestrated it into oblivion. 

_ I barely remember what happened after I blacked out. I mean, it makes perfect sense, I wouldn’t have blacked out if she had been able to heal me, but I think we were both equally as bad off after facing off with Zarkon. But almost dying? Just how close is almost?  _

_ Apparently close enough that the mere mention had the entire team clamming up and changing attitudes so quickly it was like an altitude drop.  _

My veins feel like they’re being iced over, my heartbeat is suddenly and violently evident in my pulse points, my wrists, beneath my jaw. 

_ In the moment I was worried I was going to die. I mean, I’ve had a lot of thoughts that I was about to die damn near since we left Earth; I thought I was going to die when we got captured by Sendak, I thought I was going to die when I was drowning in the shower, and then there as I was blacking out I thought I was going to die but I never really thought of it in this context. I’ve in passing been like, haha, yes, almost died a few times but whatever! After Sendak, I was just relieved it was over, Shiro and Lance were going to be okay. After almost drowning, all I could think about was getting to Shiro. You would think I’m used to the prospect of almost dying by now. This revelation of it being as serious as I expected it to be shouldn’t be that much of a big deal.  _

_ Is it because… Is it because I saw how the others reacted? How quiet they got, how anxious they were to put it to bed and avert attention from it?  _

_ Were they this scared after that ordeal with Sendak and I just didn’t notice? After I almost drowned? _

_ … Is this upsetting me because I didn’t expect them to care? _

We walk onto the training deck but I can’t get my eyes to come into focus. I hear the others speaking in animated voices to each other but I can’t hear them… No, I’m not listening. 

_ In those moments I never once considered how the others would feel if I died. I just accepted it as the price I’m willing and able to pay to protect them, but I never exactly expected… No, it’s not that I didn’t expect it. I just didn’t even fathom that it would be something to take into account. It was just… it was about the others. That’s not abnormal, is it?  _

_ Oh boy, there’s a lot to unpack there. Alright. Best not to think about that too hard. Time to put that in one of those “let’s never open this baby again” boxes in my head and tuck it into a dusty corner to be forgotten. _

With grit teeth I rub my eyes and force myself back into the present moment, grounding myself by digging my fingernails into the palm of my right hand, into the scar. Even beneath the gloves I can feel the familiar sharp ache, and it returns me to the training deck.

“-start out with some one on one for you two.” I blink when I see Shiro gesturing towards me and internally I wonder what I just missed as he continues without pause, “Hunk, Lance, I’ll set up a simulation over on that side with the drones so you guys can practice your aim and maneuverability.” Shiro points to the right side of the arena as he marches with purpose towards the panel on the far side of the room to set up the simulations. Hunk and Lance grumble to one another as they summon their bayards, dropping their helmets off to the side of the room and move to do as they’re told. I rest my helmet beside theirs as I move to stand more in the center of the other half of the training deck.

“Can we put up a barrier in between us, though?” I clear my throat to steady my voice with a surprising level of success, gesturing to the middle of the arena as my gaze follows Shiro’s receding form, “I’m not super keen on getting accidentally shot.” 

“It’ll help to provide some realistic conditions.” Shiro states as he taps his fingertips along the holographic keyboard on the other edge of the room, his gaze set and determined, “You’ll have to learn how to keep an eye out and fight at the same time,” He throws his words over his shoulder at me as he turns his head towards Hunk and Lance, “While you have to learn how to avoid hitting the team.” 

“Yikes, okay, no pressure or anything!” Hunk replies with a huff, hefting his bayard at hand in a resting position just at his waist. 

“Please,” Lance jests with a wicked, charming grin that flashes in the light, jutting a thumb at himself with his bayard perched dramatically on his shoulder, “I  _ thrive  _ under pressure.” 

The cavernous space of the training deck reverberates a quiet ring as Keith summons his bayard from his suit, the red blade extending outwards and into a sword. I turn to my right and see him standing in a prepared stance just over my right shoulder, his gaze glued to someplace far away that isn’t remotely here at the Castle. I mimic his movement, clutching my bayard as it extends into a lance as a continual grounding gesture, focusing on the sturdy metal and the reality of its existence.  _ Come on, focus. It doesn’t matter if I almost died a few times. Point is: I didn’t. Zarkon’s just gonna have to try harder than that to get me to bite the dust.  _

Shiro approaches Keith and I with an analytic gaze, shifting between us as he crosses his arms over his chest comfortably, “Let’s start off with some sparring, then we’ll join back up with Hunk and Lance for some combined unit attack strategies.” 

Keith nods, his grip on his bayard tightening as he slowly turns in my direction, “Sounds like a plan.” 

I flicker my gaze to Keith briefly before I raise an eyebrow at Shiro, “Are you gonna be fighting, too? Or do you just want Keith and I to beat the shit out of each other until someone wins?” 

Keith’s eyebrow quirks at me in an otherwise enigmatic expression as Shiro nods with a prompt, sharp movement of his chin, his gaze moving to me then to Keith, “I’d actually like to work with you both individually first, give some pointers as we go.”

Keith pauses, his eyes locked on Shiro’s as his sword hand falls ever so slightly lower, “Shiro, are you sure? I mean-” 

“I need to practice just as much as you.” Shiro’s tone morphs slightly, growing more reassuring and parental as he regards Keith with a softer gaze, his crossed arms falling to his sides.

Keith settles, nodding slightly as he straightens to face him instead. I take a few steps backward to stay out of the way, resting the tip of my bayard on the ground to lean on while I watch the fight take place.  _ I haven’t seen Shiro fight hand to hand since we fought Sendak, and that was the sort of fight you can’t really prepare for, especially with Sendak’s prosthetic arm-the-size-of-a-cow bullshit. Watching Shiro fighting someone that’s his level, or at least his size, should be interesting. _

Keith holds his bayard aloft with a tentative stance, one that I’ve never seen him have while he trains. He usually leans head first with his bayard pointed outward, but now he’s leaning back, the sword tip raised and aimed more at the ceiling. Shiro taps his wrist and summons the violet-black shield in his suit, and with a once over of Keith’s form he speaks with a harder edge, “Fight me as you would anyone else. You need the practice.” 

Keith frowns, a downward dimple forming as his brow pinches but he complies nonetheless, his stance shifting to one that resembles his normal one more closely, but I can tell he’s still hanging back a little. 

_ Come to think of it, I don’t know exactly the worth of having us spar with one another. I personally don’t ever go all out when we do fight each other because I’m afraid of hurting them. The way I fight Keith is wildly different to how I fought Haxus when Sendak was taking over the Castle; I went tooth and nail, I held nothing back, and there’s no way that I can possibly mimic that sort of mentality while sparring with the others. I need to learn how to fight effectively when I’m unrestricted, because that’s exactly how I will be if we were to be attacked by any Galra opponent.  _

_ But… I’m sure Shiro has us do it for a reason, even if I can’t see it. Maybe it’s to practice the basics so we can draw upon them when we’re in those all or nothing scenarios? Actually… that makes sense. I guess I should give Shiro a bit more credit.  _

With a sharp dash forward, Shiro holds his shield vertically in front of him as a physical battering ram, barreling towards Keith without reserve. Keith dodges to the side just in time before he drops low to the ground, sweeping his leg at Shiro’s to throw him off balance. Shiro leaps with surprising grace over the attack and as he lands he swings one foot with the remaining momentum into Keith’s chest, effectively knocking him onto his back. Keith falls back with a loud huff, but before he can rise up again Shiro plants his foot on his chest and gives him a slight, triumphant smirk from over him. 

“Come on, Keith, I know you can do better than that.” 

Keith furrows his eyebrows and lets out a frustrated breath as Shiro lifts his foot off of his chest and offers him a hand up. As he rights himself on his feet, he runs a hand through his hair and pushes his bangs out of his face with a far more determined expression than before, one that makes my heart feel like it’s about to beat out of my chest.  _ Oh geez. He’s pretty. He has no goddamn right being so fucking pretty while he’s fighting. Why is his frustrated scowl so-  _

_ No, bad Will, bad gay. We’ve been through this. _

Shiro raises an eyebrow at him as Keith gets back into position to fight. A stray gold bolt from the left side of the room strikes the wall just behind Shiro and draws my attention away from their fight and instead to the other side of the room. Lance and Hunk are hard at work shooting down circular drones that flood into the deck from fist-sized holes in the wall and whirl about at dizzying speeds, intentionally meant to be hard targets to hit. Hunk cleaves through them with an arc of gold flooding from his bayard, his gaze is surprisingly sharp and focused as he holds his heavy gun with a steady hand on the handle; it looks more like he’s weed whacking a lawn rather than shooting down drones. As a result his gold shots are hitting the wall opposite of them as well as the drones, but fortunately it seems to be largely drones.  _ He’s facing that way on purpose; he knows this, and he’s acting accordingly so he doesn’t hit Keith and I.  _ Lance stands at his back with his smaller rifle-sized bayard at hand, holding the blue underside and firing with stark accuracy at drone after drone like a pivoting automatic bolter. 

_ They’re… really good at this. I don’t know, maybe it’s just easier for them because Garrison training? I mean, Garrison is technically a branch of the US military, they probably have some form of combat training, right? But I suppose maybe not hand-to-hand combat or anything because when are you gonna need  _ **_that_ ** _ in space, or at least so they thought…  _

I hear a loud thump a few yards ahead of me, snapping my gaze back to Shiro and Keith’s fight. Shiro stands with Keith’s sword at hand, pointing it at Keith with a raised eyebrow, almost a questioning look that reads like  _ come on, are you even trying?  _ Keith is straightening after he appeared to have fallen from the disarmament. His expression is evidently frustrated, yet its darkness doesn’t reach his eyes, they continue to glimmer a dark gray like nothing’s changed. 

“Go get some water.” Shiro jerks his chin off to the side of the room with a firm yet kind tone, turning the hilt of the red bayard towards Keith for him to take. When Keith’s fingers close around the hilt the blade disappears into his suit as he turns, his gaze briefly meeting mine as he passed by towards the side of the room. He taps the wall where a hidden compartment lies, pulling a water bottle from within and tilting his head back to take a drink. 

I get a hard thwack on my back, nearly knocking me off balance as I practically jolt out of my armor at the surprise. I whirl with wide eyes as I take a stumbling step back, peering at Shiro with a utterly confused expression as he gives me a chastising look. His hand falls to his side as he states in a sergeant-like voice, “Never take your eyes off your opponent.” 

“I didn’t realize you were my opponent  _ now _ .” I huff under my breath, only at the last minute do I make an attempt to hide the snark in my voice to make it sound just a tad more respectful. I grip my bayard steadily in my hand, raising it up in front of me more defensively as I eye Shiro for any sign of his next move. 

Shiro holds his shield up with a determined look that glimmers in his eyes, muted black behind the dark lattice of his shield risen before him, and after a moment he starts to move, shuffling with a slow movement to skirt around me. Quickly I mirror him, keeping my bayard at an angle in front of me in preparation to engage the shield when Shiro attacks… 

Except he doesn’t. He continues to circle around me with his shield at the ready until suddenly he stops after at least a solid minute. He drops his shield hand and gives me a look I can’t quite decipher as he speaks, “In the time that took, your teammates would be overwhelmed by other forces.” 

I blink at him stupidly, dropping my bayard a little from where I hide behind it, “Huh?” 

Shiro rests a hand on his hip, his voice maintaining its hard edge, “You have to be willing to take the first step and attack first. Being cautious has its place, but sometimes time is of the essence and you have to end a fight quickly to get to the others, or get past before reinforcements arrive, or to escape a room before it’s opened into space.” 

I frown a little but set my jaw in determination, letting out a short breath as I grip my bayard tighter, “Alright… I’ll try.” 

“Don’t try.” Shiro answers curtly as he resummons the shield in his suit, bracing behind it as his stance widens in preparation, “Do it.” 

I rake my eyes across Shiro’s form in search for any hole in his defense, anything I can use to my advantage.  _ I could swipe at his legs and try to catch him off balance, but that leaves me open for a punch in the face. But attacking his shield won’t do anything, it’s a shield… or will it? I don’t know, maybe. Damnit, I can’t find anything that won’t leave me vulnerable to a counter- _

“You’re taking too long!” Shiro barks with a frustrated huff, “When you’re in danger, when the  _ team  _ is in danger, you don’t have a moment to breathe or think, you just have time to act, so do it! Doing something is better than doing nothing!” Shiro’s shield bobs as he takes a startling step forward as if to goad me, and I find myself setting my jaw with a frustrated growl under my breath.  _ Fine. Fine. I’ll fucking act. _

I lash out with with one of the flat ends of my bayard, taking a step forward to get in close once the attack strikes Shiro’s shield to attack from the other side with the other end of the lance. Shiro twists at the last second, putting his shield in parallel with the ground to block both of my attacks before he pushes outward. The hard holographic surface of his shield smacks me directly in the face and knocks me off balance, I hit the ground back first. My grip on my bayard tightens as I slide my palms to one end of the lance and lash out with a full force swing like it’s a baseball bat from the ground upwards at Shiro. His advancement to pin me to the ground is halted to block the blow, but I vastly miscalculate the strength of my hands in this position for as my lance strikes his shield it bounces outward with the same amount of force I put into the blow, knocking it from my hand and off to the side. I turn and scramble for it, but before I can get remotely close I feel Shiro’s hand on the back of my suit, holding me against the ground, grabbed by the scruff of my neck. 

“Better, way to at least take initiative.” Shiro says over my head. He hauls me to my feet with his prosthetic arm on the back of my suit, quite literally like I’m a kitten getting pulled out of trouble by a grown cat. I frown as I’m set back on my feet, bending over and grabbing my bayard from the floor as Shiro continues with the same terse tone, “The strength in your bayard’s form comes from using the entire staff, not from using one end or the other. Use its range the same defensively and offensively.” 

I growl in frustration, my eyebrows furrowing as I tighten my grip on the length of my bayard, “Alright, alright. I’ll try again.” 

“Keep a level head.” Shiro instructs, his shield leveling once again before him, “Don’t let your emotions overwhelm you into acting without thinking.” 

I frown, gritting my jaw and waving my bayard with an annoyed tone that I don’t bother to hide, “Isn’t that what you  _ literally  _ just told me to do?!” 

Shiro sighs, and I watch as his brow pinches for a second before he lets out a slow breath, straightening a little as his face returns to neutrality, “There’s a difference between acting without thinking and acting quickly on your feet.” He squares his shoulders as he drops into a defensive stance, his gaze a mere shadow behind the violet darkness of his shield as he barks, “Battle stance, Lancaster.”

I grit my teeth and this time I don’t hesitate. I charge forward with my bayard at hand, this time as I swing my bayard parallel with my elbow towards his left I grip the sides with both hands to activate the shield. Shiro turns with his shield to block the blow but my shield blindsides him much harder than I realized it would, the force of the momentum from its summons sends him flying a few feet backwards, hitting the floor on his back like he just got sucker punched.

I blink and immediately release the shield, stepping towards him as I hear Keith’s voice, filled with worry, crying out to my left, “Shiro!”

Shiro sits up from the floor, his shield disengaging from his arm as his stormy eyes rise and meet my gaze with an expression I can’t quite read. I let my bayard fall to my side with an apologetic look, holding out a hand to help him up. 

Shiro lifts his prosthetic arm up and grasps my hand, the cold of the metal even felt through my gloves, but as I tug back and upward to help him up he yanks downward, catching me completely by surprise and before I know it he’s on top of my chest with a fist poised over me in preparation to punch. 

I raise my hands to block, I blink once, twice. A dark vision rises from behind my eyelids, a faceless shadow with a violet scratch across where its face should be, screaming,  _ “I wasn’t strong enough, but are you? Are you strong enough?!” _

I jolt as Shiro rises up, pulling me to my feet by the front of my armor as he smiles a little slyly, “Now that’s what I’m talking about, Will… just don’t let your guard down.” His smile dies as he looks at me with such seriousness that it’s chilling, “If I was the enemy, even when they look beaten, don’t ever let your guard down. Don’t give them the chance to take advantage of you.” 

I swallow dryly as Shiro turns away, turning to fix his gaze on Keith. He stands with his hackles raised, one foot stepped out as if he were preparing to race forward and tackle me to the ground for laying a hand on Shiro.  _ His protectiveness is certainly admirable. I pity anyone who harms Shiro while Keith is in the room; if he’s this tense while I’m fighting him, I can’t imagine the lack of mercy he would have for a true enemy.  _

“Spar while I work with Hunk and Lance. Tap out if you’re down then reset until I call us all together.” Shiro orders as his gaze flicks from Keith, to me, back to Keith before he turns away and heads towards Hunk and Lance, who stand to the side with water bottles at hand after apparently completing their drone simulation. 

I hear the sliding sound of Keith engaging his bayard and I immediately take a cautious step back away from him, flurrying to raise my bayard in defense. My heart’s racing, I feel like I just got chased by a bear down a hallway as the screaming shadow’s words rip through my skull, some long forgotten dream that got dragged up by that moment.  _ “Are you strong enough?” _

Keith pauses as I jerk into a defensive position in preparation for him to descend upon me like a bird of prey.  _ The look in his eye after Shiro helped me up was cold, I can only imagine how quickly my ass is gonna get handed to me now that he’s got more than enough of a reason to fight _ . Yet, much to my surprise, he doesn’t move. He pauses, leaning back a little with a what looks like a cautious light in his eye. 

My frustration, already grown from the ass-kicking Shiro delivered, continues to climb upwards as I set my jaw, “Hey, no need to hold back on my account. I’ll try and keep up.”  _ I don’t need you to go easy on me just because I suck at using my bayard. Nothing pisses me off more than thinking you’re gonna hold back out of pity. _

“That’s not what I…” Keith pauses, his mouth suddenly clamping shut as his eyebrows draw together with a troubled look, like I would imagine if he were about to sass a teacher but thought better of it at the last second. I raise an eyebrow at him, but before I can question him he clenches his hand around his bayard and the expression is wiped clean from his face. He beckons towards me with one hand, his husky voice level and even, “You need to work on taking initiative, right? So come on.” Keith leans forward into a more aggressive stance, his sword held before him in preparation. More like normal. 

I bite my lip and nod briefly, quickly giving his stance a once over. _He likes to overcommit, use that to your advantage somehow._ _Right. Don’t overthink. Just act._ I launch into action, jabbing the flat of my lance’s bladed end towards his left as I take a step closer to attack with the right while he’s distracted. Keith blocks the first strike with ease but the second strike takes him by surprise as I smack the flat of the blade against the back of his armor, ringing dully in the echoing space just below the din of Shiro barking orders at Lance and Hunk over my shoulder. Keith rights himself faster than I was ready for and strikes out with a deft kick, driving me in the stomach just below where I grasp my lance. I stumble back with a grunt, barely raising my lance up in time as Keith descends his blade down towards my head. I push his blade aside and twist, the polearm parallel with my elbow as it strikes him in the shoulder. I can hear the sharp edge of the blade scrape across the hard, smooth surface of his armor, and immediately I falter. I retreat back a step, holding my bayard just below shoulder level as I inspect his shoulder with wide eyes to ensure I didn’t actually wound him. 

Apparently Keith didn’t even notice as he continues to fight like nothing happened, and he takes advantage of my hesitation to the fullest extent. He uses his left hand to knock one side of my bayard upward, screwing up the balance of my hold and causing my bayard to slip. I tighten my hold frantically and try to reposition myself more defensively, swiftly taking a twisting step with crossing feet to face him but not before he swings his sword and takes advantage of the hole in my defenses. I feel the sting of the metal slipping into the weak point in my armor just between where the plates on my shoulder and upper arm meet but I react quick enough to prohibit another attack, I hold up my bayard and grasping either end and shove the large, engaged shield outwards to knock him down. With surprising agility he dodges backwards, just out of reach of my strike and with a roll to the left he lashes out with one foot with the leftover momentum at my knee just as I twist to face him. Immediately my knee gives on impact and I have to release the shield to keep myself from falling with one hand on the ground. Only at the last minute do I hold up my bayard parallel to the ground to block any incoming strikes, but when I look up I see Keith straightening, not yet attacking. I use the brief second and leap to my feet but the move is rushed, completely graceless, I’m off balance as soon as both of my feet are on the ground. Before I can even think about creating a defense, Keith has risen from his low blow from the ground and dashes towards me, clashing his sword hilt into the central metal bar of my lance and shoving me backwards with a quick, concentrated force. Immediately I fall back on my ass with a loud huff, but this time as I rise to my elbows to get up I find Keith’s blade just below my chin. 

Unlike before, I can’t find it in me to be frustrated. It certainly don’t feel like he was holding back, so all’s fair and square, and honestly I feel… Good.  _ I got a good hit or two in the beginning, and I’ll take that as a win. _ I look up at him with a slight smirk, out of breath as I give him a nod of approval, “Nice move.” 

Keith doesn’t answer. His gaze is steely, glued to something that isn’t my face with such intensity I feel strangely vulnerable. His bayard disengages, slipping back into his suit as he kneels down beside me wordlessly and grabs my forearm, pulling me into an upright position with a surprising about of gentleness, I’m a little taken aback. 

“What?” I ask, looking at him with a confused look but he doesn’t meet my gaze; his eyes are glued to my bicep. His grip on my forearm rises to my elbow as he turns my arm slightly to examine it with an analytic gaze like the side of my arm is a difficult line of code. 

I follow his gaze with growing confusion to see the tear in my suit, right in the chink of my armor where the shoulder meets the arm. It’s just a bare cut, it has already stopped bleeding and merely looks like a cat scratch.

I shrug Keith’s hand off my arm, granting me a shooting glare that I don’t quite understand as I chuckle at him, “Wow, you got a lucky shot there! Nice job.” I clap him on the shoulder with my other hand, sitting up more and using Keith’s shoulder as a steadying point to stand upright. He rises just afterwards, yet when I turn to look at him his expression looks so dark that the amusement dancing on my lips dies out. 

“Keith, it’s just a scratch.” I murmur with a gentler tone, but he doesn’t even seem to hear me, he’s facing the wall over my shoulder. I tilt my head a little to look at him more clearly and fully and his dark indigo eyes snap to mine so quickly it causes my thoughts to short circuit briefly at how violently my heart seizes by just  _ looking  _ at him. Only once I push past the gay am I able to fully examine his expression. It hasn’t changed, he looks like he’s angry but forcing it down so hard that I’m surprised that steam doesn’t come out of his ears at the suppression.  _ What’s he so pissed about? I thought fighting me would relieve any anger he would’ve had towards me for knocking Shiro over, but he looks even more upset than before.  _

I poke him with my elbow in a more jovial manner, giving him a bright grin as I cock an eyebrow at him, “You did exactly what you should’ve. We need to practice how to fight in a real fight, right?”

Keith’s expression doesn’t falter, only growing more and more neutral until seconds later any trace of any visible emotion is gone. When he looks away I feel the tension I didn’t realize I had in my stomach relax, I’m able to breathe a little easier as he responds with a curt, dismissive, “Right.” 

Without another word or any change in his expression he turns and heads towards the wall where he left his water bottle, apparently taking an undesignated break. Frowning, I follow after him with hesitant steps. 

_ Why is he acting so… weird? I haven’t even the faintest clue what exactly he’s thinking that leads for him to behave this way. Does he think I’m so weak that I can’t even take a little cut? That explains why he got so cautious all of a sudden when we squared off, but then he went all out when we did go at it so I don’t think that’s a problem. I figured he would’ve been more than willing to fight me after I knocked Shiro down, and after yesterday… even though we kind of made up last night when I gave him his jacket back, there’s no way he isn’t a little bitter about me giving him shit at the mall for his disappearing act.   _

I grab a water bottle from within the wall and eye him curiously with growing confusion. He doesn’t appear at all different than he did when we walked onto the deck today or when I’d join his training regime back on Arus. _He really has a knack for keeping any emotions unreadable. I figured it was just his broody demeanor but just now I literally saw him shoving down any emotion beneath the blanket of his visage._ _I wish I could read his expressions and actions better. The hell’s going on in his head?_

“Did I say you could take a break?” I turn towards Shiro as he approaches us, his hands at his sides and his expression neutral, yet his eyes are alight with an unknown energy; he doesn’t look truly upset, no… not with us taking a break, for sure, but something. There’s something there.  

“Hey, hydration is important.” I retort with a snarky grin, the frustration I felt earlier slowly waning as the seconds carry on. 

“Well… get back to it whenever you’re ready.” Shiro hesitates as he flickers his gaze between the two of us but as he turns to walk back towards Lance and Hunk, Keith speaks up to my right, “Um, Shiro?” 

Shiro pauses, turning around to look at Keith with a confused raise in an eyebrow, “Is something wrong?” 

“Oh, no.” Keith quickly answers, his hand holding his water bottle dropping to his side as his gaze skirts around the room, “I just… Maybe we should move on to the multi-target simulation you were talking about earlier. Because we have a lot of work to get to and I want to make sure we have time to do it.” Keith briefly rubs the back of his neck as his eyes continue to scan the floor as if he dropped a Tubman and wondered where it went. As I glance over at Shiro with a lost expression I see his gaze is sharper, a bare shift in his features that minutely hint at quiet suspicion before he nods with the same, soft voice he always uses with Keith, “Yeah, good idea.” He turns over his shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest as he calls to Hunk and Lance, “Alright, fall in. We’re moving on to group work.” 

“I don’t know if I should be relieved or not!” Lance calls dramatically, resting his bayard on his shoulder like every heartbreaking cowboy I’ve seen as he and Hunk stride over to meet us in the middle of the arena. 

“I’ll set up the simulations, but there are some important things for you all to know about fighting in a group like this.” Shiro states, his gaze shifting to each of us in turn as he addresses us individually, “Lance, you’ve got the sharpest eye and quickest reaction, so the best thing for you to do is try to keep your distance, cut down individual enemies as they grow closer to give the rest of us less people to fight when they do get to us.” 

“You know, there’s a reason why they call me Sharpshooter.” Lance smiles crookedly with almost tangible charm, flashing me a wink out of the corner of his eye. 

I can’t help but snort, “And who’s they?” 

Before he can retaliate, Shiro interrupts with his arms crossed over his chest, “Just remember that you’re not a melee fighter; don’t get caught up in hand to hand if you can help it.” Lance purses his lips, perhaps to argue, but he doesn’t get the chance as Shiro turns to address Hunk, “Your bayard packs the biggest punch, but it has less maneuverability; the best strategy for you in a group setting is to block against flank attacks, blast at approaching squadrons and cut through their ranks, thin collective numbers. You just have to avoid shooting into an intermingled crowd, your bayard isn’t built for its accuracy.” Hunk nods solemnly with an intensely focused expression, his hand on the handle of his bayard tightening as his resolve almost visibly hardens. 

Shiro turns his gaze to me, “Will, you’re best suited for defending the team with that shield of yours. Keep to the front against a main body and prevent any attacks coming from the front. Your bayard is wide, you have the most area of effect at close range than the rest of us, so your job is to block and sweep.” 

“Aye aye, Captain.” I jokingly salute Shiro with my bayard planted in the ground, resting my hand on my hip. 

Shiro allows a slight smile to appear on his lips before he continues more seriously, “Just remember to keep your guard up and be aware of what’s going on around you. And don’t hesitate to act.” I nod, mentally noting his instructions.  _ I’m the shield. Literally. I bash and block. That shouldn’t be too hard. _

As Shiro turns to Keith, his expression returns to its neutral, commanding state, “Keith, you know where your strengths lie; you’re agile, you’re fast, and you’re decisive. You individually take down opponents up close to keep the rest of the team from getting overwhelmed or targeted, but don’t overcommit; without the rest of the team, you’re more vulnerable and easier to overtake, especially in a situation where there are a bunch of enemies coming from all around.”

Keith doesn’t answer, he only nods with a contemplative, determined expression that sends shivers down my spine.  _ Christ, I’m gay. _

“Alright, get ready.” Shiro commands, tapping the holographic panel on the far side of the room before he marches over to us, barking quickly, “Circle up, backs in.” 

I obey, turning until I’m side to side with Lance and Hunk and back to back with Shiro and Keith, watching for the approach of potential enemies.  _ Now the real question is… holograms, robots, or drones? _

Apparently, it’s holograms. Out of the wall directly in front of me come blue, humanoid spectures, several at a time until there are nearly a dozen charging towards me at dead sprints so fast I barely have time to react. Immediately I snap my bayard forward and grasp both sides to engage the large shield as soon as the first enemy’s close enough to strike, its holographic sword bouncing harmlessly off of its surface and abruptly reversing its momentum forward. Gold and blue bolts fire past me as Hunk and Lance fire away, decimating the number of enemies approaching our collection. Over my shoulder I can hear the hum of Shiro’s prosthetic arm firing to life and the swing of Keith’s sword passing through holographic enemies. 

“Hunk, cover us! Lance, stick with Will!” Shiro barks.

“Roger that!” Lance cries followed by Hunk’s, “On it!” I swing an arcing slice in front of me as two enemies who managed to survive Lance’s fire charge forward. I manage to strike and dissolve one, but the other dodged out of the way just in time, rolling to the side and rising to my right with its weapon raised. I twist at the last second to duck as the holographic blade whistles over my head, and idly I wonder if it’ll hurt if it hits me. I jab upwards with a swift uppercut of my bayard and rip through the formless figure, turning once its form dissolves to see Hunk cleaving through a new wave of enemies off to the left. At my back I turn and see Keith and Shiro with their shields activated, deflecting more attacks than they’re able to deliver from the sheer number of enemies before them. Lance is blasting the enemies that attempt to join the fight as they emerge with deadly accuracy, the holograms barely form before he destroys them with a shot. 

With a determined set in my jaw I grab both ends of my bayard and dash forward just between Keith and Shiro with my shield activated, knocking back three enemies to their flanks and cutting off half of the possible angles for the holograms to attack the pair by my presence alone. Disengaging the shield I swing one end of my bayard to the left to cut through an enemy focused on Shiro and then to the right to the mirroring hologram fighting Keith, who jabs forward with his sword now that he has the freedom to move. 

“Got your back!” Hunk calls behind me as the loud pulsing of his bayard firing continues like the revolving of helicopter blades. 

After several seconds the holograms have completely dissolved and stopped forming, leaving the training deck empty and silent save for our rapid breaths from the exertion. 

“Great work, team.” Shiro pants softly to my left, nodding in approval as he calls into the empty room, “Next simulation!”

…

“Okay, Shiro, listen-” Lance pants, his bayard disengaging so he can lean his hands on his knees to pant like a haggard horse, “I know practicing a lot is important, but I think, maybe, I don’t know, what’re we at… fifteen? Fifteen times is maybe enough!”

I don’t have the oxygen to speak. I lean heavily on my bayard as my breath comes in ragged gasps, the muscles in my arms and legs aching and screaming for release as I press my sweaty forehead against the heat of the metal that came from getting clenched between my palms for the past few hours.  _ This is beyond training for skill; this is endurance and survival. _

“Yeah, I think I’m with Lance on this one.” Hunk huffs, rolling his shoulder and switching to hold his bayard in his other arm, “Can we just take a lunch break? Or like, post-lunch break? What time even is it? I’m so  _ hungry _ !” 

“Just a few more rotations.” Shiro’s just as out of breath as we are yet his voice is just as firm and commanding as when we walked into the deck this morning. His prosthetic pulses as his hands unclench from fists, but just as he’s about to raise his head to order the next simulation the com within the training deck crackles. 

“Hey guys, come check this out!” Pidge’s voice echoes up to the high ceilings, immediately filling us all with hopeful relief at potential salvation. 

Shiro regards the ceiling with a begrudging expression, like a teacher when the bell rings and the students already begin to pack up. Finally he turns to us and gestures with his chin, “Let’s go see what she’s found.”

“Oh thank  _ crow. _ ” Hunk groans in relief, disengaging his bayard all together to hold his stomach with both hands, “Can we get lunch afterwards, though? I think I’m literally shaking I’m so hungry for some food goo!” 

“Alright.” Shiro nods in agreement as we shuffle to the far wall to collect our helmets where we abandoned them on the ground and take one last water break. I grab mine and empty it down the hatch, smacking my lips before moving to grab another from the container only to find it empty.  _ Damn.  _

“Be ready to head back to training afterwards.” Shiro states, tucking his helmet under his arm as he moves to lead us out of the deck. 

“Man, haven’t we done enough training for today? My arms are like ramen, I can barely hold my bayard steady anymore!” Lance cries dramatically, waving his arms as if this is evidence to his point. 

“How do you think  _ I  _ feel?” Hunk groans, rubbing his shoulders with his arms criss crossed over his chest, like a mummy’s. 

“Preach.” I grunt as I swing my helmet at one hand carelessly, trudging with dragging feet across the smooth floors of the Castle as we head towards the Green Lion’s hanger. 

“If it helps us get stronger then it’s worth it.” Keith’s voice is huskier with his slowly recovering breath, and as I glance over at him running his hand through his hair and pushing his bangs out of his face I damn near have a stroke on the spot.  _ He has no right to sound so fucking… sexy when he’s out of breath. Sexy? No, it is, it’s downright sexy, even a straight man would agree-  _

“Whoa, Keith!” Lance cries with a dramatic gasp, moving to stare with bewilderment as Keith’s clueless expression as he points to his face, “I didn’t know you had a forehead!” 

Keith gives him a deadpan, unamused expression that looks so impossibly done that I can’t help the amused snort that rises from me. I have to clap a hand over my mouth to suppress the giggles and clutch my side with the other as the laughter makes my lungs ache all the more. Once I take a second to collect myself I elbow Lance teasingly in the side, “Quit, laughing makes everything hurt worse!” 

As we stride into the collective hanger headed toward Pidge’s, the doorway from the bridge opens up and Allura comes striding in. Her hair is in one long braid, curled on the top of her head in a bun while donning her battle armor that resembles our Voltron suits save for the highlighted colors being a soft pink rather than our assigned lion colors. 

“Hey Allura.” I greet, grimacing as I move to wave but my arms immediately regret the action. Instead I settle to hug my helmet to my chest as a method of stretching the sore muscles, “How goes fixing the wormholer?” 

“Coran is hard at work.” Allura answers with a brisk nod, taking stride to join our group as she clasps her hands over her heart, her gaze glimmering in worry in the bright overhead lights, “Almost too hard. I worry he’s going to burn all of his energy if he keeps the pace he’s set.” 

“It’s important to get the wormholer back up and running.” Shiro responds with a neutral, commanding look, marching ahead of us as we approach the Green Lion’s hanger, “We don’t want to be caught unprepared.” 

“I know.” Allura replies, holding her chin high as she walks in step with him, “There’s no telling when Zarkon may reappear. Hopefully, it’ll be more difficult for him to track us, now that he no longer has a connection to the Black Lion to go by.” 

As we enter the Green Lion’s hanger, we spot Pidge crouched over one of her three tables cluttered with loads of Altean tech, computers, wires, and all manners of gizmos and gadgets that have begun to spill onto the handful of clustered chairs that sporadically surround her station. She’s changed out of her flight suit into a green hoodie and cargo pants at this point, the sleeve on one side rolled all the way up to her shoulder and illustrating just how huge the article of clothing is on her small frame. The Green Lion sits overhead with her head held high, her tail curled around her tail with her eyes peering straight forward and out of the glass of the massive door into Pidge’s hanger that leads into space, the stars twinkling just beyond like we’re standing in an astrarium. As we walk over, I see a brilliant white light shining across Pidge’s face like she’s working on a fluorescent light bulb over her desk. Upon hearing our approaching footsteps, Pidge turns over her shoulder and grins, her glasses shining the reflection of the light, “Hey, come check this out!”

“What have you found?” Shiro asks with a raised eyebrow, his gaze flickering over Pidge’s shoulder to the light behind her. 

As she steps away, I have to blink to accomodate to the brightness of the light shining off her worktable. It comes from a contraption that looks a little like an Altean coffee maker but without the pot, shining a concentrated white light down where the coffee would usually drizzle. In the place of where the pot would be if this were a real coffee maker is my stone, held in place by a wire contraption to hold it upright in a little stand. The light from the coffee maker-looking machine is bouncing off of its surface, illuminating the entire stone to reflect this bright light like a small star sitting in the Green Lion’s hanger.

“I’ve been running some tests to pick apart the alloys and elements that encompass the structure of our stones, and I’ve found that, while each of our medallions are made of the exact same material, they give off wildly different energy signatures that I can’t quite decipher.” Pidge answers as she turns back towards the contraption, curling her nose to push her glasses up her face.

“And what are they made of?” Hunk asks as he strides forward, bending down to examine the contraption more closely with narrowed brown eyes that appear starry with the reflection of light coming off of my stone. 

“That’s another thing… I have no idea.” Pidge answers with furrowed eyebrows, her hand resting on the table to type a series of commands into a holographic keyboard that hovers just to the right side of the contraption, “I think it’s composed of elements that we’ve never seen before on Earth.” 

“I mean, that’s not surprising,” I mutter, shrugging a little as I set my helmet on one of Pidge’s tables out of the way of her current work, glancing over my shoulder at Allura, “They’re alien, and the lions are apparently weird even for aliens, so...” 

Allura nods in agreement with me as she peers at the holographic screen Pidge works on, her expression pensive and unreadable, “I’ve never seen elemental structures like these before, either. I’ll have to show Coran later, he is more experienced in this field than I.”

“Is that all?” Keith cuts in, his arms crossed over his chest with his gaze flitting between Pidge’s hands on the keys of the holographic board and the contraption illuminating my stone. 

“The thing is, while I don’t know what these elements are, you would think that with the slightly different alloys they would only have slightly different energy signatures.” With a wave of her hand she illustrates a holographic screen before us of a pie graph, showing several slices of varying sizes that encompass the pie with different, what look like Greek symbols attached to each. “The thing is, the energy signatures  _ really _ different, like, not even related to each other.” She types a few more things into her keyboard and swipes upward once more to illustrate another holographic screen next to the pie chart, this one of three scatterplot line graphs, one white, one yellow, and one green, with colored spikes that are all over the place, all three never intersecting each other.

“I wanted you guys to come here because something weird happened.” Pidge continues, turning now to fully face us as she points to my stone hovering in the contraption behind her, “When I put on my stone while it was hooked up, the energy changed.” She points to her chest where her stone lies over her chest, pulsing brightly like a living heart on the outside of her body, but I notice now that there are wires attached to it, like the wires that now encompass my stone in the Altean coffee maker thing, “I got this weird… energy. Like waking up from a decent night’s sleep. That’s when I realized it was my stone, healing me, just like Will’s did after the explosion back on Arus.” She gestures to her exposed arm, and now that I look at it I realize that that was the arm Pidge was cradling when we landed from training.  _ So... it can heal too. That means all the stones must be capable of doing that. _

Pidge’s voice continues as the sleeve falls back down to her elbow, drawing my attention back to her hands, “When I analyzed my stone while I was wearing it, the energy signature completely changed, one that had some corresponding patterns with the previous signature it exhibited but it also has some points of likeness in your guys’ stones’ energy.” She slides her wrist upwards and illustrated a fourth line on the line graph, a darker green than the lime green line that already represents Pidge’s energy signature. Several blue dots pop up, showing where the points line up with the fourth line on the other three lines. 

“So, you want us to put our stones on and see if our signatures change, too?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow, plopping down into a chair just beside the device while examining it with a fresh gaze. 

“Yeah, exactly.” Pidge nods in affirmation. With a ginger hand she taps a button on the side of the device and the white light suddenly dies, leaving my stone appearing just as it was before. She pulls it within its wired contraption out of the middle and then holds it out to me with both hands, like she’s cradling an egg, “Be careful not to move the wiring around.” 

I raise an eyebrow and grasp the chain of the pendant slowly, raising it over my head to put it on, “It won’t zap me, will it?” 

“Probably not.” Pidge shrugs in a less than comforting manner as she slides Hunk’s stone where it rests beside the contraption towards him. Hunk lifts his stone and we briefly look at one another and with coordinated movements we slide our stones over our heads. I let it fall to my chest as slowly as I can manage to not jostle the wires.

I don’t feel much different, if a little more awake, but as soon as the pendant is around my neck Pidge’s computer starts to beep loudly and incessantly, flashes of symbols illuminating on the green holographic surface. Immediately she whirls around and starts typing on the keyboard, the symbols’ stream reflects back on her glasses like the information is being presented individually just for her. 

“What’s happening?” Shiro asks, taking a step forward to peer over Pidge’s shoulder at the screen. I watch as the holographic screen portraying the four-line graph shift, pulling up two more lines within it. The spikes begin to emerge, and this time they line up exactly with the fourth, dark green line that Pidge had added to the graph earlier. 

“They’re an exact match!” Pidge cries excitedly, standing more upright as the data streams into the system, “The energy that comes off of our stones when we’re wearing them are the same.” 

“Then why are they different when you’re not wearing them?” Keith asks with furrowed eyebrows as he moves to stand by me, peering at the holographic screens with flickering eyes across the data points with utmost concentration. 

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I answer, glancing down at the wiring around my stone with pursed lips.

“That’s really weird. I don’t feel super different.” Hunk replies with an equally confused look, glancing up at me while tilting his head. 

I shake my head to answer his unasked question, “Me either.”

Allura tilts her head as she turns to regard Hunk’s stone where it lies against his chestplate, her pointed left ear twitches like a cat’s as she stands poised with a straight back, “Nothing at all? With a change like that you must feel  _ something _ .”

“So wait a minute, what type of the energy whatevers are the stones matching?” Lance asks with a quizzical look. When Pidge turns to face him with a clueless expression he elaborates while speaking animately with his hands, “You know, in physics with Dr. Evans, she said there were a bunch of types of energy, like electrical, nuclear, chemical… A whole bunch! So which one is the one that lines up with the energy that it gives off when you guys are wearing the rocks?” 

I blink in surprise, slightly baffled, “I took physics last year and have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Yeah, no I get you, Lance. You see, that’s another thing,” Pidge answers with a look that’s mixed confusion and frustration, “These energies don’t align with any of the eight types of energy. It’s completely different, and much, much more powerful. It’s-”

“It’s like the other types of energy are easy make mac and cheese.” Hunk cuts in, his eyes wide as he regards the screen, “But this energy’s like… a souffle. It’s on a completely different level, way more complicated, and like, way more intense than the others.” 

Pidge blinks and shrugs, “Yeah, I guess.” She turns around to face Shiro, peering up at him over her glasses, “What’s more, it looks like the baseline for this kind of energy is  _ insanely  _ high.”

“What do you mean?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, looking at Pidge with a completely confused expression. 

“It’s kind of like how the baseline temperature for Kelvin is really low.” Hunk answers for me, gesturing to the holographic panel with a thumb, “The baseline shows what the typical is, so for this energy to have a really high baseline…”

“That means it’s powerful.” Pidge continues, fixing her gaze on Shiro, “Like, all-of-the-other-types-of-energy-combined-make-up-half-of-this kind of powerful.”

Suddenly, something in my memory clicks. “Wait a minute.” I hold up a finger, my breath catching as I snap my fingers, “Wait, do you remember when we were at the Space Base and-” 

“I  _ knew  _ that name would catch on!” Lance cries triumphantly, flashing us a grin with his hands on his hips in a proud, winner’s stance. 

I roll my eyes a little with a hint of amusement as I continue, fixing my gaze on Keith, “You remember, the big glowy chamber? That Galra was refining-” 

“Quintessence!” Pidge gasps, nodding as she jolts, standing more upright, “I remember! The robot I hacked into said that it’s the most powerful energy source in the universe. That’s what I was going to say, I theorize that that’s the energy in our stones.” 

“Yeah,” Keith answers with a muted tone, gesturing with one hand, “But what  _ is  _ it?” Wordlessly, we all turn to Allura.

She returns our collective gazes with an analytic expression, her hands clasped in her lap, “It’s the very essence of life itself; the building blocks of the universe.” 

“Like, carbon?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow. 

Allura deftly shakes her head, “It isn’t an element, it is more… fluid than that. It is the bond that brings elements together, it’s the life force that gives soul to the matter it composes.”

“Oh. That’s the word you have for it.” Pidge murmurs thoughtfully where she stands by the device, her hands braced on the table, “It’s the connection that holds atoms together to form compounds. A long time ago, scientists thought that it was magnetic or polar attractions that held elements together to create more complex systems, but with Juvina’s study in 2087 it’s been described as something… more. Something, like you said, that’s fluid, and alters the state from compound to element to compound.”

“So, life force is…  _ can _ be a source of energy? Like a fuel the Galra use?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, my head spinning at just the amount of repetitions of the scientific terms I barely grasp.  _ I knew I should’ve paid better attention in my science classes. _

“I’ll admit, Coran has a better grasp on the science of quintessence than I.” Allura responds as her hands clasp and unclasp in her lap. Her ears twitch downward as she fixes Shiro with a sapphiric gaze, “But he’s incredibly preoccupied with reconstructing the teludav. I don’t want to distract him when he is already working like a ghaltoff.” __

Shiro’s expression is gentle and reflective as he replies, “He’s working around the clock to get it up and running again in case Zarkon shows up. I don’t want to risk distracting him from doing that, we want the teludav back up and running as quickly as possible so we don’t have another situation like in that metallic storm.” 

This mutes us all for the moment, leaving the only sound in the room the dull hum of the Castle’s thrusters. 

“Well, maybe we can just go talk to him while he’s working.” Lance offers, his hands falling to his sides to fiddle with the belt around his narrowed waist as we turn to face him, “Like, we don’t have to show him all the graphs and stuff. We can just ask, like, ‘Hey Coran, you’re doing great on the wormholer thing, but quick question, what’s this quint-nessy stuff, and why do the rocks have it?’”

“Quintessence.” Keith corrects quietly, his arms crossed over his chest as he regards Lance with a neutral expression. 

Lance narrows his eyes at him, and I swear I see a dusting of red under his chin and rising from his neck as he grumbles, “Whatever,  _ mullet, _ you know what I mean!” 

“I can ask.” Pidge pipes up, turning to face Shiro while pushing her glasses up her nose, “He could use a hand fixing the teludav, anyway.” 

“Alright.” Shiro nods with a pensive glimmer in his gray eyes as he glances to each of us, “While Pidge is on that, I’d like to get back to our lions for some more-” 

“Shiro,  _ please  _ can we have a lunch break first?” Hunk whines plaintively, looking up at Shiro with pitiful puppy eyes from where his sits in a chair next to Pidge’s desk, “I’m so hungry I’m gonna _ eat _ a ghaltoff!” 

Allura’s eyes widen at the prospect as she mutely shakes her head, she seems a little paler than before.  _ Huh. That does leave to question what the fuck is a ghaltoff. _

“... After some lunch.” Shiro amends with a slight aside, his gaze dropping to the ground for a moment before he looks at Hunk with a gentle expression, “Thanks for reminding me.” 

“Oh, how could I forget!” Hunk, perked up at the prospect of food, rises to his feet and immediately sets for the hanger doors, “Let’s go get this goo!”

Quickly we turn to follow with a fresh pep in our step, and immediately my stomach begins to growl.  _ I didn’t realize how hungry I was until now… And thank God for that. My muscles need a break from the rigorous training regime Shiro’s got us doing.  _

_ I hope he doesn’t do this  _ **_every_ ** _ day of travel.  _

“I’m hungry, too!” Pidge cries as she scurries after us, her sneakers squeaking on the smoothed white floors as we exit her hanger. 

“I’m afraid I should get back to recalibrating the flaxums and monitor the power output.” Allura responds with a regal posture, splitting off from us in the hanger to head for the bridge, “But I wish you luck in the rest of your training.” 

“Oh don’t worry, we don’t need luck when we’re  _ this _ talented.” Lance flashes Allura a charming smile and a fingergun to drive it home as she walks away, but she doesn’t seem at all phased, merely continuing on her path with a polite smile as if he’d just said ‘Thanks.’ 

“And how talented is that?” Keith quirks a slight smirk as he regards Lance, cocking an eyebrow at him with a teasing lilt. Even though the look isn’t directed at me, it still leaves me weak at the knees nonethesame.  _ That smirk has got to be the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen.  _

“More talented than you!” Lance cries indignantly, fixing Keith with a narrowed gaze and a stubborn pout. 

“Can y’all save your fighting ‘til we get some food?” I jest with a slowly growing, wicked grin, “I’d love dinner  _ and  _ a show.” 

Lance and Keith both fix me with matching glares in such a way that I swear the balance of the universe must have shifted to allow for such an in sync moment to occur. Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed, as beside me Pidge immediately breaks into wild laughter that echoes in the empty hall and down the corridor. I find myself laughing with her, and before long the contagious sound fills the Castle as we make our way toward the kitchen for some food. 

_ Ah, camaraderie.  _


	2. Compensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week is a long time, and already the Paladins day's been packed with ruthless, rigorous training that tests their minds and their bodies to their fullest extent... with various, mixed results.  
> It begs one question: what does it take to break a Paladin of Voltron?  
> \---  
> Content Warning: Slight claustrophobia, mentions of being buried alive but it isn't what you think, it's very mild and meant not to be scary, but it is only briefly mentioned near the end (ish) of the chapter. Nonetheless, take care of yourself. Also, vague mentions of things related to PTSD and having to deal with it.

After lunch Shiro had us go to our lions and practice forming and reforming Voltron for about a half hour, then came the never ending battle: pushing us to our absolute limit on strength and capability of practice fighting, weaving us through complex simulations and practicing move after move after slice after dodge while in Voltron. I remember Pidge being bitter because she wanted to go and talk to Coran about quintessence but then again I barely had the energy to think beside following orders. Before I know it we’re back inside, food goo, I see it’s midnight, I’m face to face with my bed, and I’m unconscious as soon as my head hits the pillow. 

It feels like I was lying down for only a minute before I hear loud knocking on my door, followed by a commanding bark, “Everybody up!” 

I blink slowly, peering up at the ceiling and for a few moments I wonder if I had hallucinated the voice until I hear it again, further down the hall and knocking on another door, “Rise and shine, team! We’ve got a lot to do today, and not a lot of time to do it!”   
I blink sleepily, rubbing my eyes as I roll to the side. A whining, familiar voice cries after Shiro’s incessant call, “Five more minutes?” 

A powerful yawn rips from my throat as I summon the will to sit up, and once I do immediately every muscle in my body aches, crying out at the movement and begging to return to the warmth and comfort of the sheets.  _ I should’ve stretched after all that training yesterday. God, why does everything have to  _ **_ache_ ** _ so bad? _

As the loud knocking continues, I roll out of bed with the grace of a sloth and attempt to rub the sleep out of my eyes. As I grow more aware of being alive and conscious, I realize that I completely passed out in my bed in full armor, down to the gauntlets and the boots still donned on my hands and feet.  _ Well, that’s one less thing I have to worry about, I guess… but God, is it really morning already? Was I so tired I just passed out in my armor? _

I stumble into the hallway, another yawn ripping from deep within me, I feel a bit like a roaring tiger, it’s the kind of yawn that makes your ears pop. Shiro stands at the far end of the hall with his arms crossed, appearing just as well rested as yesterday in such a bright eyed manner that I immediately start getting annoyed.  _ He has no right to look so well rested. What time even is it? _ I touch my wrist to access my suit’s computer. 6am.  _ When did we get released from practice yesterday? I feel like it was midnight-ish, but it was all such a blur…  _

“You’re up quickly.” Shiro says to me as I approach him, his tone shining in approval, “That’s good, you’ll need that speed.” 

For a moment I contemplate telling him that I just passed out in my armor, but frankly I’m just too tired to even open my mouth at the moment.  _ I haven’t felt so tired since the week before Shiro crashed to Earth when my dreams were really really bad and I couldn’t get more than an hour or two of sleep for several days at a time. But this time it’s not because of the White Lion’s tests. To be completely honest, this type of sleeplessness is almost worse because I’m face to face with the cause of it. I think I understand why murder seems reasonable.  _

_ Don’t get me wrong, I love Shiro. But goddamnit I am about to wring his neck for waking me up. _

Slowly but surely the others begin to filter out of their rooms in various levels of dishevelment. Pidge straight up looks like a zombie, her eyes are listless and her feet drag along the floor like she’s wearing skis. As Keith strides out of his room he appears awake and alert, but there’s a gloss over his eyes like the finish on ceramics that are the only indication of his exhaustion. Hunk jumps up and down as he exits his room to pull his boots on, nearly tumbling over in the process but propping himself upright on the wall before moving to join us, pulling his gauntlets that he held between his teeth on as he fights down a yawn. The last to emerge is Lance almost a full minute later, his face is shiny and glossy like the surface of a new smartphone after the plastic wrapping is peeled away but there are bags beginning to form under his baby blue eyes that contrast the well kept state of his skin. 

“Shiro, why are we up so early?” Hunk asks in the midst of a yawn, holding a hand over his mouth as he checks the time via the computer in his suit, “We went to bed like, five hours ago!” 

“Six. And we’ve got a lot of training to do, and not a lot of time to do it.” Shiro responds patiently, turning and marching down the hallway with purposeful steps, “I wanted to make sure to construct meal times into the schedule, so that means earlier wake up and later dismissal.”

I can’t help but groan slightly in response, rubbing my eyes as I trudge after him, “Shiro, I love you, but  _ I sure hope _ that this is a good enough reason for waking us up to early.”

“I haven’t been this exhausted since Zarkon was hounding us, what, two days ago? Three?” Lance responds in a pitiful tone, his shoulders sagging as he picks up step beside Keith just ahead of me. 

“I know it’s tough, but we’ve got to train and be prepared for whatever Zarkon throws at us, ro-beast or warship.” Shiro responds charismatically, but it still gives me pangs of annoyance as we continue on our way down the hall.  _ Is he not tired, too? Did he take all of our rest through osmosis or some shit? Is that even a thing? Probably, wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened… that would be our escape from the mall on Kaltenecker. I wonder where Lance ended up taking her. I think I’ll ask… when I have the mental capacity to be a human.  _

Shiro leads our merry band of exhausted teenagers into the dining room, where there is already a large bowl of green goo laid out and waiting for us along with several empty bowls and spoons. I collapse into a chair and pull on the top one, piling a scoop of food inside and immediately going to town to get some nutrition. Albeit I take my time with it, knowing that as soon as we’re finished here we’re moving on to some strenuous activity, _ no doubt _ .

Breakfast is quiet as we eat, mostly because we’re too tired as of yet to start conversations but I figure once we get through the first training exercise we’ll be more awake and more communicable. But, for right now, all I’m capable of doing is holding my eyes open and shoving food down my throat. 

Once we’ve eaten, Shiro stands first and stacks our bowls in the center of the table as he begins to give out instructions, “Head to your lions. We’re gonna start with some practice forming Voltron and doing some more simulations.” 

I can’t help but softly groan in response, rubbing my eyes as I stand, “Okay, Shiro, I say this with all of the love in my heart,” I grumble as I hold up his hands, looking at Shiro with a tired, yet respectful expression, “What exactly are you preparing us for? Cause right now, all this feels like is that you’re torturing us with exhaustion.” It takes a lot of effort to not let the annoyance slip into my tone, but I manage.

“It’s important to be prepared for anything. Like Shiro said, Zarkon could be anywhere, and we have to be ready to take him on.” Keith responds to me with a low, husky voice, his arms crossed once he stands upright while regarding me with a straightened gaze. When I meet his violet gray eyes something in my chest spasms and I have to look away as I stand to maintain any semblance of normalcy.  _ Seriously? I’m too tired to really go into any level of cognitive function, but I’m just awake enough to feel the gay? This is fucking stupid- _

“Exactly.” Shiro answers evenly, nodding towards Keith as he heads for the doorway, “Now get to your lions.” 

Lance grumbles beside me as we head to the door to follow Shiro, “This is gonna be another long day, isn’t it?”

Pidge rubs her eyes with a completely miserable expression, frowning deeply as she shifts her glasses along her nose, “Hey, Shiro? Listen, I know it’s important for us to practice but can I go study the stones instead? Or go talk to Coran about quintessence? Will, Hunk, and I need to test out what’s going on with them, and… stuff.” She groans softly under her breath and presses her fingers to her temple, “Ugh, I’m so tired I can barely think clearly!”

I immediately hop on the train, blinking a little deliriously as I’m still slightly asleep mentally, “Yeah, I’m with Pidge! That’s important!”

Shiro frowns at this, his steps brisk and regular in the echoing hall as he answers, “After our Voltron exercise. Lance, Keith, and I will hit the training deck while you three work on the stones.” 

“Aww, man!” Lance complains loudly, pouting and crossing his arms, “How come they get a break?” 

“It’s not a break.” Shiro responds gently, his silver-gray gaze falling to Lance, “They will be working just as hard as we are in discovering what the stones do.” This seems to quell Lance considerably, his risen hackles settle as he regards Shiro before he turns his head slightly to the side, like he’s listening for the Altean mice in the walls.

“Exactly!” Hunk pipes up helpfully, nodding quickly at Pidge and I, “Hard at work for sure!”

“We need to find out why you have them.” Keith responds in a low tone, his brow set as his hands fiddle with the wrists of his gloves, “And how the rest of us can get them.” 

“That’s the goal.” I respond with more than a hint of sarcasm. I can’t help it, I’m tired, and at the moment Keith’s husky voice is making my neck flush red and I  _ frankly _ don’t appreciate it.  _ He has no right to arise a gay panic in me this early. No right. Especially since he’s just standing there, doing nothing but being a fucking beautiful, stupid, mullet-headed- _

“Alright, keep focused.” Shiro states curtly as we spill into the large, communal hanger that adjoins all of our hangers together. “Get in your lions and meet up outside.” 

“Hold on a second.” Pidge adds while raising a finger, gesturing to Hunk and I, “Let me get your medallions again so-”

“Oh, you guys just wanna do that so you can do that weird mental talky-talky thing while we’re training!” Lance accuses with a huff, his arms crossing indignantly over his chestplate. Pidge turns away from the group and towards her hanger with a soft groan in complaint that’s barely heard. 

I can’t help but roll my eyes, shooting Lance a slightly derisive look, “Relax, Lance. Green isn’t your color.”

Lance blinks at me stupidly for a solid beat before he swings his hands out wide with a loud breath, “What’s that… what... what? I’m not wearing any green!” He steps towards me and juts a thumb towards the Voltron symbol on his chest, “ _ Blue _ Paladin,  _ blue _ ! What’re you, color blind all of a sudden?”

“He’s saying you’re acting jealous.” Keith responds in an even tone, his arms crossed over his chest with stable and quiet expression but his eyebrows are pinched together, shrouding his gaze. 

“I didn’t ask you,  _ Mullet _ !” Lance retorts sharply as he turns to look at him with furrowed eyebrows, bristling up so instantly that even in my sleepy state I start a little. His face is flushed and his mouth is pressed into such a thin line that he looks like he’s about to burst with some energy I can’t quite determine.  _ Geez. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing for me to say… was it? Oh no, they aren’t going to go back to their constant fighting like back on Arus, are they?  _ Keith merely stares Lance down without a change in expression or shift in his demeanor.

“Let’s stay focused, team.” Shiro interrupts with a stern tone, fixing Lance with a steely look that glints in the light with what may be slight concern, but I’m still starting to wake up so I can’t really be sure, I can’t read expressions well enough at the moment. Lance meets his gaze only for a solid few seconds before he looks away, the tension slowly leaving his shoulders. Keith doesn’t move through this exchange, merely watching like a panther hidden in the trees.

Pidge returns from her hanger with the White and Yellow stones at hand, holding it out to Hunk and I in turn once she’s back in our collected group. As soon as the stone brushes my hand I feel a minute rush of energy that’s like a bolt of lightning; jolting and surprising yet also warm and welcoming, as if espresso shots were instantaneous without the shaky side effects. I look up at Hunk as he grasps his and his gaze immediately meets mine, and I know; he felt it just as I did. 

Hunk opens his mouth with a slight breath, “So does that thing happen every time?”

“That shock?” Pidge answers in sync with Hunk, moving her light green, pulsing stone to hang outside of her suit, “I think it’s a-”

“The reconnection.” I murmur in response once the White Lion’s stone hangs over my neck, gesturing towards my hanger vaguely, “It feels like that once you’ve had it off for a while. When you put it back on, it gets more surprising when you’re apart from it for a longer time. I think it’s because you get accustomed to the connection while wearing it.” 

“Can we just train, please?” Lance groaned in an annoyed voice, rolling his eyes as he heads off impatiently towards his hanger, swinging his helmet from his side onto his head like the sweep of a cowboy’s hat. I watch his back and raise an eyebrow at him curiously.  _ Maybe I was right before. Maybe he really is jealous… but that makes no sense, jealous of what? Of not having a stone? Maybe so, but something’s telling me in my gut that there’s got to be more to it than that.  _

“Good idea. Now that we’re ready, let’s head to our lions.” Shiro responds in a charismatic manner, leading us to break towards our individual hangers. I let out a sigh and head towards my hanger, pulling my helmet on as I walk through the teeth of my lion and into the cockpit. I slump into the seat, and once I have my helmet securely on Allura’s voice melts over the com, midsentence as my com engages, “-but the Castle needs to divert all power to the teludav while Coran is calibrating the system and adjusting the alignment. You’ll have to train without the defense systems.” 

Shiro is quiet for a moment as I press the hanger remote access and guide my lion out into space before he verbally nods, “That’s alright, we’ll manage.”

I rub my eyes as my lion and I float into the weightlessness of space, letting out a soft breath at the gorgeous view. We’re surrounded on all sides by red wispy, sparkling smoke; it’s soft, breaking apart like cotton candy dispersing in water as my lion and I drift forward. Downside is, I can’t see but a foot or more in front of my lion’s snout, it’s nothing but dusky, shifting red, like smoky sand. 

“Whoa, what’s with all this fog?” Lance murmurs over the com with a wondrous tone, “I thought we were in, you know, space?” 

“We must be in the center of a nebula.” Pidge replies in a factual tone, “It must be really big, otherwise we should be able to see through it.” 

“So we should probably head back inside,” Hunk sheepishly adds with an opportunistic undertone, “You know, since we can’t see? Can’t do simulations if we can’t see!”

“No, this is a perfect opportunity to bond with our lions.” Shiro responds with a determined voice, alight with enthusiasm, “Let’s try to find each other using our connection to our lions, and then form Voltron.” 

I raise an eyebrow and smirk a little as I tap on the holographic panel to my left, bringing up the area circumference around my lion.  _ Just like when we were chasing Rolo and Nyma through space, I’ll just find them on my handy-dandy-little-lion-sensey thing… _

Except I don’t. As I tap the hologram the projection of the area surrounding my lion merely flickers with symbols before a reading pops up that says _ ‘interference in scanning’. _

“Ugh,” I groan, rolling my eyes as I slump in my chair, “I can’t see you on my lion’s scanners.” 

“It’s messing with my scanners, too.” Pidge responds with an equally annoyed tone, “It must be the density of the nebula. It must be really wild for it to be affecting  _ your  _ scanners, they’ve proven to be a little sharper than-” 

“All the better.” Shiro replies with the crisp discipline of a drill instructor, “Rely on your lion’s senses and focus on each other.” 

Once again, I love Shiro, but his peppy voice makes me want to defenestrate myself out of my lion to escape the pain of existence.    
Lance’s groan matches the rhythmic waves of my soul, “Come  _ on _ , it’s too dense! I can’t even see Blue’s nose!” 

Sighing in resignation of my fate, I close my eyes and lean back against the seat. _Okay._ _Connect with my lion. See through her eyes. Come on… Help me find the others._ Slowly I let my hand rise to my chest and touch the White Lion stone where it rests just beneath my breastplate. 

I’ve only ever been able to connect with my lion enough to see through her eyes twice before; the first was when we were back on Arus, Lance and Keith were intent on seeing who could crash into the ground the fastest; the second was back when Keith and I faced off against Zarkon, without thinking or knowing what I was doing I somehow connected with my lion enough to try and find Shiro after he was ejected from the Black Lion.  _ The first time I hold true that that was sheer luck and happenstance, and the second time was instinct and desperation. Now it seems I’ll have to start from scratch.  _

The memory of our fight against Zarkon brings me out of myself and the task at hand for a moment.  _ Come to think of it… I don’t quite know how most of what happened happened. It was like I was riding in a different lion, a more advanced lion with more abilities. Like, that moment of connection where I got to see through her eyes, but also that crazy shit Silver started doing, acting at her own volition… Activating a weapon I didn’t know she had.  _

I sit up a little and scan the panel resting before the controls, spurred by the memory. Little holographic charts are open that display the interior systems continuous checking, the disbursement of power into the propulsion in the thrusters, along with a series of buttons for different attacks: mouth lasers, the small laser in my lion’s tail, engaged claws and fangs, the lance… The button that appeared during the fight against Zarkon is not among them, and I don’t see anything that could look like it as I examine the dash. 

“Hey, Keith?” I call over the com. I hear him hum in response, prompting me to continue, “So, this is completely random, but you remember that really big ass lava gun your lion had back when we fought Zarkon? The one on its back?” 

“Um, no offense but shouldn’t you be focusing on like, you know, lion connections and stuff?” Hunk’s voice is respectful and tentative, until suddenly his tone makes a complete 180 turn, “Wait a minute, what big lava gun?”

“Yeah, I remember it.” Keith answers simply after a moment’s thought, “Why?”

“Can you like…” I pause, thinking about my words before I speak them, which takes an annoying amount of time, “Do you see a button for it on your dash now?”

“... No.” Keith replies in a stoic, unreadable manner after a few seconds of silence, “She kind of just… did it. On her own.”

I hum softly in defeat as I stare at my dashboard.  _ How is it that we are still learning new things about our lions? Why can’t we use those weapons now? _

“Wait a minute, hold on, you had a  _ whole ass  _ **_lava gun_ ** and you don’t have a button for it?!” Lance cries dramatically over the com, “You said it back on Olkarion, too, how can you forget something so… so…!”

“I have a theory!” Pidge suddenly declares. _Fuck it, I can’t get a connection like this._ _Old fashioned way it is._ I right myself and take a firmer hold on my controls to try and peer through the nebulous, scarlet cloud to find the others.

Pidge’s voice is animated and excited, “So, you know Hunk and I both got our stones after our lions unlocked like, these special upgrades, right? I got the vine blaster, he got the armor claws-” 

“Vine blaster?” Lance snorts in retaliation, I can hear his audible smirk over the com. 

“Yeah!” Pidge huffs indignantly, “It  _ is _ a vine blaster!” Before Lance can interrupt again she continues with the audible equivalent to barging through an entryway, “Anyway, I think maybe the Red Lion must have went into something like a survival mode, unlocking those abilities simply to keep you, and it, alive. So, maybe you need to get your stone first before you are able to use it consistently. Like, after I got my stone the button for the blaster appeared on my panel and now it’s always there.”

“But I got my lion’s sonic boomer thing on its back while we were stuck on that mermaid planet, its button is on my dash too, but I don’t have my stone!” Lance argues with obvious frustration permeating through his tone. 

“And I already have my stone and I can’t access my weapon either!” I argue with a slight pout.

“... Come on, don’t tell me  _ you  _ also have a freaking lava gun, too!” Lance cries indignantly, exasperated and annoyed. 

I huff and carefully engage the thrusters in my lion to glide forward slowly, searching the fog as I speak, “My lion did this like… thing, a full body pulse that made a bunch of stuff explode. That button wasn’t there before, and isn’t here after, so if that’s the truth then why am I not able to have that since I already have my stone?”

Pidge lets out a long sigh that is half exasperated and half frustrated, “I don’t know! You got it first thing, maybe it’s just gonna be different for you. And it  _ is _ just a theory.”

“That still doesn’t explain why Lance doesn’t have a stone.” Hunk murmurs thoughtfully.

“Can we focus on finding each other in the space fog, now, please?!” Lance grumbles in muted annoyance. With a frown I settle my hands on my controls and turn my head from side to side, renewing my focus in finding another lion. 

The quiet over the com is cut into by an ear splitting screech,  _ “AH!”  _

“Oh, I found you!” Hunk cries gleefully in response. 

Pidge grumbles in a peeved tone,  _ “Yeah you did.” _

Suddenly, large forms begin to form through the nebula’s smoke. “Whoa, shit!” I yelp, barely pulling my lion to a stop right before I crash into the Green and Yellow Lions where they hover a mere foot apart from each other, and now a foot away from me. Once I’ve ground to a stop I let out a breath once my hands have steadied on the controls, “Oh, hey guys! Alright, that’s half of us, Shiro, Lance, Keith, where you at?” 

“I think I see you.” Shiro murmurs pensively through the com, and as I raise an eyebrow I see a vague, black shape just beyond the Green Lion’s head, which is so close that it nearly encompasses my front facing vision from within the cabin.

“Hey, I see you!” Hunk exclaims excitedly.

“Yeah, great job, Shiro!” Pidge responds in kind. I think if I squint hard enough I might be able to see the inside of the Green Lion’s cockpit through the golden hue of its gaze, that’s how close we are. 

“Good, almost everyone’s here.” Shiro states calmly, right as a large force smacks into my lion from behind. I grab the controls to try and steady the White Lion but it’s too late, the Green, Yellow, and Black Lions were too close, and now we’re all crashing into each other and being sent in spirals away from one another.

“Hey, watch it!” Pidge threatens as I steady my lion, clanking our lions’ heads against each other. As I turn my gaze left and right I see the others regathering their control and collecting around the Blue Lion, which floats in the red, nebulous space like nothing happened. 

“Well, I found you, didn’t I?” Lance quipps with a fauxly proud tone before promptly declaring, “Ha! Beat you, Mullet!” 

All’s silent for a moment, until the Red Lion appears only a few seconds after we settled, practically invisible among the red clouds, and once we’re all together we innately move to form Voltron without prompting. I reach out and my essence immediately intertwines with Hunk’s and Pidge’s, it’s quick and easy like picking up sticks, or locking hands when we’re walking side by side, but just like yesterday Shiro’s essence is identifiable but not incredibly clear. It takes a few seconds to get wound up with his essence and the two others, one being Keith and the other being Lance but I can’t tell until we’re already wound up together which is which.  _ Maybe this is something to do with the stones. Or maybe it’s our connection? No, I wasn’t able to hear Hunk before he got his stone, but immediately afterwards I could…  _

_ ‘Yeah, Will, it was just you and me in here. That’s why I think the stones are the key, bonding with our lions help us to bond with Voltron.’  _

I blink through my lion’s gaze out in Voltron’s chest and raise an eyebrow,  _ “Oh hi, Pidge. You really think so?”  _

_ ‘I mean, it’s the best theory we’ve got, right?’  _

Once we’re all connected, Shiro lets out a soft breath. “Alright, team. Let’s do some faux flight exercises; maneuvers, dives and rolls. Keith, engage sword, Pidge, engage shield!” 

“Roger that!” Keith barks in perfect sync with Pidge’s internal thoughts, migrating into my head like a leaf carried on a river,  _ ‘On it!’ _

The Red and Green Lions crash together to unfurl the sword as Pidge engages the shield, and as Shiro begins to shout orders my thoughts and processes seem to completely melt into Hunk’s; we engage the thrusters at the exact same time, we put the pressure and power at the exact same notch, we twist the exact same manner; it feels eerie yet also so innate and right that it sends shivers down my spine. 

_ ‘This feels so… cool. I feel so connected with you right now, Hunk!’ _

_ ‘Dude, me too! This is so intense, it’s like we finish eachother’s-’ _

_ ‘Don’t make me come down there.’  _ I think in a jesting tone as Shiro calls, “Full reverse throttle on thrusters, like we’re dodging an ion cannon!” 

We move in time with Shiro’s shout. We aren’t attacking anything in particular, Shiro just shouts commands and we move to follow as fast as we can like we’re under attack. Time after time, minute after minute… hour after hour. I lose track; my hands are sweaty and the stretch between my shoulderblades begins to hurt as I twist Voltron at Shiro’s command, it’s growing to be just like yesterday evening, listening, responding, acting, thoughtless, numb. 

It gets to the point that I nearly slip on my grip, my fingers are tingly from how hard I’m grasping the controls.  _ Okay,  _ I think to myself,  _ it may just be time for a break. I can’t even think straight.  _

_ ‘Will, you never think straight.’  _

_ ‘Can it, Pidge.’  _ I roll my eyes with a slightly tired smile as Shiro calls, “Barrel roll up, through the nebula!”

“Shiro,” I cut in, clearing my throat briefly as my voice feels unused, “How long have we-”

“Nosedive corkscrew, raise shield!” 

_ ‘This is somehow worse without the Castle attacking us. Is Shiro just making this up as we go along?’  _ Pidge’s thoughts float across my own as I rapidly respond to Shiro’s commands as quickly as I’m able to, the centripetal force of the movement grounding me to the floor of the cabin.

Hunk’s thoughts mingle in my head as I engage the thrusters in Voltron’s back to put us back in resting position,  _ ‘I personally don’t like being shot at, so I can’t say that I agree that this is worse. But I mean, it is kind of… intense.’  _

I shake my head, and after a brief breath I mentally think in response,  _ ‘I think something might be wrong.’  _

“Diagonal slash, shield bash, retreat!” I move my arms in time with Shiro’s shouts, but the muscles are aching and sore.  _ Ugh, fuck.  _

_ ‘What do you mean?’  _

Hunk’s thoughts are peculiar, they almost feel like how Hunk speaks, which is hard to describe. It’s like your own internal voice, except its Hunk’s, but it isn’t quite a voice either. Thinking is just such an abstract thing… 

Shiro. 

_ ‘He’s pressing us so hard,’  _ I think back with furrowed eyebrows,  _ ‘Without breaks. It wasn’t even close to this intense back on Arus.’ _

_ ‘I don’t know, I mean, we need the practice, I guess, but-’ _

_ ‘No, you might be right.’  _ Pidge’s thoughts glide through my thoughts as I jerk the controls in junction with Voltron, barely moving with Lance’s directional push. A thought crosses my mind and I see myself sitting on a ledge with my feet hanging down, except my legs are shorter and I’m wearing cargo shorts…  _ I’m not me, I’m Pidge. _ I’m sitting next to Shiro as he looks down over the gardens of the Castle back on Arus, his expression is drawn and pensive and his eyes glint like knives,  _ he wasn’t like this before- ‘Maybe something’s bothering him? I don’t know what it could be though, maybe he got stressed out after establishing his bond with the Black Lion or something…?’  _

“Jump, dash! Pidge, laser blast!”  _ ‘Oh, shit, right, lasers-’ _

I can’t help but frown as I keep up with Voltron’s movements that seem to grow more and more intense as the minutes drag on.  _ I think I just… was in your memories, Pidge.  _

_ ‘What?’ _

_ ‘No yeah, I was too, you were in the garden back on Arus with Shiro, it was like we were you except we knew we were you- oh my crow, this is so confusing, aH THRUSTERS!’ _

_ Well, that’s new and interesting. _

It’s hard to think outside of following orders, but with all my leftover focus I hone my thoughts on Shiro.  _ He’s on edge. He’s having us train, hard, especially when it comes to being inside Voltron. After lunch all day yesterday it was just Voltron, Voltron, Voltron. It’s hard enough that he is putting aside most of our personal combat training, studying the medallions… It has to be for a reason. But what? Why does he feel the need for us to train this hard? Maybe Pidge is right, maybe something happened when he was bonding with the Black Lion, or maybe it’s something else. _

_ ‘Maybe we should just ask?’  _

I blink.  _ ‘Fuck, I totally forgot you guys can hear me when I think.’  _

_ ‘Good idea for later, but right now I’m just gonna ask for a break.’  _ Hunk clears his throat right after Shiro barks another order, “Hey, Shiro? Do you think we can take a-”

“Yes! Break! Please!” Lance cries in absolute delight, letting out a long, drawn out and relieved sigh, “My arms are  _ screaming _ right now!” 

As Voltron slowly grinds to a halt with our combined release of tension, I hear some heavy breath over the com followed by Keith’s breathless voice, “Yeah, we should rest… For just a minute.” I feel a blush rise in my cheeks and my throat constrict without my consent as he audibly pants.  _ Unfair. Breathless Keith shouldn’t get a rise out of me. This isn’t fair. Who the fuck let- _

_ ‘For the love of all that is good in the world, can you have a gay crisis in your own head?’  _

I curl my nose, suddenly all the more embarrassed as my tongue practically jams my throat, immediately thinking back at Pidge in response,  _ ‘Fuck off.’ _

Hunk lets out an audible, low whistle, “Wow, you two must be  _ real  _ exhausted to be agreeing with each other.” 

“Yeah!” Keith and Lance answer in complete sync, and despite how achy my body is I can’t help but laugh quietly to myself. 

Strangely, there is no response to our request. Voltron has stilled, we’re all unmoving within our cabins, but there’s silence over the com. 

“Shiro?” Keith asks, his voice tentative and soft. 

The silence is total for a beat before Shiro clears his throat, “Alright. Brief break. Pidge, Hunk, Will, get to work on those stones. Keith, Lance, let’s-” 

“Can we get some lunch first?” Hunk asks suddenly, piping up enthusiastically. Our connection to one another relaxes as our strain from training fades, and after several seconds we drift apart into our separate lions. 

“Yes, please!” Lance huffs, “I’m  _ starving! _ ”  _ Fuck, is it lunchtime already? How long have we been training? _ For a moment I wait and listen for Hunk’s enthusiastic thoughts on lunch but I’m met with silence.  _ Oh. Right. Not in Voltron anymore, only me in my head now. Wow, that’s so… weird. I already grew so accustomed to them being a part of my head…  _

“Alright.” Shiro states in a firm tone, “After some rest we’ll get back to it, charged and ready.” He speaks like he just delivered a battle plan, and with the dismissal we gravitate back towards the Castle. I turn to go, but I hesitate slightly as I watch the Black Lion glide through empty space towards its own hanger. 

_ Something is definitely bothering Shiro. He just sounded so… absent-minded. Out of it. And he’s so laser focused on training, it has to be to distract him from something.  _

I open the remote access of my hanger and guide the White Lion to rest within, and once she lies herself down on the metal floors I stand, taking my helmet off. Briefly I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass reflection of the visor.

_ I have to talk to him.  _

I set my helmet down on the seat before I turn and head down the stairs. 

As the others are getting out of their suits in their armories, I head towards the Black Lion’s hanger without bothering to change so I can get a minute or two alone with him. The Black Lion sits with its paws beneath it, its slight red wings jutting out the back casting a long shadow across the doorway as I enter. I feel like its golden gaze is boring into my skin as I look to the doorframe right by the hanger door that leads into Shiro’s armory, but when I look up at it there is no light in its eyes, like it’s asleep. 

The armory door is already open, and within Shiro is sitting on the bench in the center taking off his boots with a grim expression and a far away look. His helmet lies just to the side of the mannequin that holds our armor when we are not using it, and the shock of white hair in the front is sticking slightly to the sweat on his brow. All in all, it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Shiro being tired since… I don’t even know, maybe ever.

“Hey, Shiro,” I announce my arrival, tapping a finger on the doorframe with furrowed eyebrows, “You got a second?”

Shiro raises his gaze to me and immediately his eyes seem to snap into focus, wiping any trace of the pensive, far away emotion etched into his face as he sits more upright, “Yeah, sure, what’s up?” His voice is gentle; not that his voice is usually hard, but comparing it to the sharp commands he was barking while we were training just now he sounds like a low rumble of a far away plane taking off.

_I have to choose my words carefully._ _Don’t want to make him suspicious or close him off… And I don’t want to make him think he’s doing anything wrong. I just wanna see where his motivations lie._

“So… Shiro… Is there a reason that you’re pushing us to train this hard?” I ask with slightly extra amount of enunciation on my words, watching him as I stand just inside the doorway of the armory, “Because, I mean, not that we don’t need the training, it just… you’re pushing us hard. Like, much harder than back on Arus, so I just wanted to ask…?”

I let my words trail off as Shiro visibly pauses, his eyes suddenly leaving mine and fixing to the ground between his undone boots, his elbows rested on his knees. For a moment I wonder if I should say something more before Shiro squares his shoulders, stating with iron words that match his gaze as he stands and steps out of the armor of his boots, "We always need to be on our toes. Zarkon could show up at any time and we have to be prepared." 

Shiro ducks his head down as his hands work off the rest of his armor, pulling the breastplate over his shoulders and setting it back in its place on the rack, putting his back to me. I watch with furrowed eyebrows as he works off the armor of his gloves with quick, jerky movements, like they are filled with red ants, and with my silence he continues in a low rumble, "We have to be stronger, faster, better, especially when we are in Voltron…-" Shiro pauses. His prosthetic hand clenches into a fist as his stony gaze, like rocks beneath a dark current, bear a hole into the floor by the doorway to the armory.

My chest chills at the sight, worry fluttering into my throat as I step towards him, "Shiro." I murmur with concern, and as he turns slightly to face me I get closer. After a tentative, split second decision I lay a hand on his shoulder, just above where the last of his armor rests on top of his flight suit, and look up at him as I speak in a gentle manner, "Talk to me. What's going on?"

Shiro fixes me with a conflicted stare, but after a beat his eyes slowly close as he turns his head to the side, I let my hand drop. His jawline is sharp and his profile in the overhead lighting casts shadows below his brow like he's naturally shrouded beneath the bows of a great tree. I could never deny that Shiro is a beautiful person, but especially in moments like these he looks like a carved statue befitting a temple. 

Shiro’s voice rumbles in a low register after a long moment of quiet, "The last fight against the ro-beast, at the Blade of Marmora’s outpost…” Slowly his eyes open and meet mine, a soft yet steely light reflected in the storms of his eyes, "It showed that we have a lot of work to do, fighting as Voltron. I know that we’re still learning, but... we need to be able to hold our own in a fight." 

Shiro's overcast eyes drapes over me, and like the crackle of ozone before a lightning blast realization begins to dawn on me. Shiro’s gaze falls to off to the side as his hands stay in clenched fists at his side. It almost looks like a resting pose for him, a state of vindication like one of those great Greek statues of ancient heroes.  _ Hold our own in a fight, Blade of Marmora’s outpost… Oh.  _

_ That’s what’s bothering him. _

"Ulaz chose to sacrifice himself for us, Shiro." He frowns deeply as I speak but he doesn’t interrupt me nor otherwise move. I let out a breath as his profile doesn’t otherwise change, and without my consent my voice drops to a quieter voice, "And believe me when I say that we did nothing to deserve that." 

Shiro blinks in surprise as he turns slightly to meet my gaze, "What do you mean?"

I look at Shiro with a growing frown, a quiet, soft blanket that’s as cold as a mountain spring rests over my heart as I speak, "We distrusted him from the very beginning-" I pause, biting my lip as a hard lump forms in my throat, " _ I  _ distrusted him. And I made sure he knew it." Something in my throat seizes and suddenly I can no longer speak. I merely stare at the side of Shiro’s face and gape, my lips move but no sound emerges. 

I never thought about what happened with Ulaz back at the post. Not once. I think we got immediately caught up in other things, Zarkon’s insistent attacks, Taujeer, Keith and Allura’s disappearing act… But never for a moment did I have a chance to think truly about what happened at the base. I remember Ulaz, clear as day now that I reflect on it; I remember how scared shitless I was of him, not in a terrified way but in that kind of fear when there’s a spider in the room, not doing anything but minding its own business but just having it in the room leads to unnecessary stress. 

But now I’m thinking about it, and I realize that my words that I said without second thought were true. I didn’t trust him at all, I made it known, the first thing I did when the ro-beast showed up was turn my bayard on him. But then he just… sacrificed himself. Suicide bombed the ro-beast into self implosion. I think it was easier to forget, not knowing him for long, not seeing the consequence of our actions in the wreckage of the ship, of anything that occurred afterwards… but now it eats at my core almost instantly.  _ How could I have forgotten that we saw someone literally die for us? Someone we treated like, well… shit. Not like how you are supposed to treat an ally. _

My hand falls to my side as these realizations hit me, and when I look at Shiro I think he sees it too. He looks at me with a soft, gentle expression, and slowly he turns to fully face me. I swallow on the lump in my throat as he gives me a soft look, “We all had a part to play.”

Something about the tumultuous tranquility in Shiro’s eyes rips me out of my own growing melancholy, and suddenly my tongue starts to work again. “He’s… While we have a lot to do to become better Paladins, there’s a balance that we have to strike.” I fix him with a firm gaze that’s filled with internal warmth, letting out a soft breath to keep my voice steady, “We have to train to get better. We can’t allow ourselves to get complicit… but there’s no use killing ourselves to compensate for what’s happened before.” Shiro fixes me with a wide-eyed look, like he’s surprised, and I find my gaze fixating on the scar across the bridge of his nose, “There’s no physical atonement that we can possibly achieve that will make what happened better or any easier. We need to let Ulaz be a lesson against complicity… But no amount of training will ever change what happened. As much as we’d like it to.” My voice diminishes with each word until I feel like I’m speaking just above a whisper, and only once I’ve finished speaking am I able to return my gaze to Shiro’s. 

He’s quiet; pensive and still, merely regarding me with the same look as before until his expression recedes, like a ripple in a pond. With a deep, exhaled breath he looks at me with furrowed eyebrows yet a much more slacked expression, “I know.” I raise an eyebrow at him in surprise, and he continues to speak after catching the look that flashes across my features, “I know that, but… It still doesn’t feel right. Don’t suppose it ever will.” 

I stare at him for a long time, watching the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows and his gaze flickers off to the side. Something in my memory stirs, I fix him with a gentle gaze as I choose my words carefully. “You remember back on Arus when we were on Sendak’s crashed ship looking for intel?” Slowly Shiro nods, so I continue with a quiet voice, “Do you remember what you told me?” 

Shiro’s expression is firm and stoic yet his eyes are soft, after a moment I answer for him, “You told me that it was okay to feel remorse over lives lost, but to not let it drag me down; instead, use that compassion to work even harder to end the war so… so more people didn’t have to die.” The memory chokes me as the words come out. I remember the smoking, twisted metal with Shiro standing beside me on a shredded pinnacle overlooking it all, talking me down, I remember the horror that filled my chest and drove a spike through my heart, and I think I can see an echo of it reflecting in the light of Shiro’s eyes. 

His expression softens as his gaze flickers between my eyes, I can tell he’s truly listening so after a pause I keep going, “You were right about that. You  _ are  _ right… but there comes a point where focusing on it too much is just masking the pain. It’s easier when you’re busy to not think about it, right?” I shift a little and regard Shiro closely for any changes in his expression, but it remains the same; soft and attentive. “That’s all I’m trying to say. What you’re doing isn’t wrong, it isn’t bad… I’m just worried that you’re using it to cover up… what happened.” I clear my throat a little as something salty clogs my tongue before I continue with a tone that’s a little more at ease, “But we’re a team, yeah? We’re all in this together… even if you are driving us a bit into the dirt.” 

As the words come out I wonder if it’s too coarse, but it doesn’t seem to offend Shiro. He merely smiles shyly, like I just told a shitty joke, and regards me with a relaxed look, “I guess I haven’t been doing that great of a job of making sure the team doesn’t burn out.” 

“It’s okay.” I respond with a slight, gentle smile, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly, “We need the training, for sure.” I let my expression return to a quiet neutrality as my tone returns to consoling, “But it isn’t life or death for us right now. It hasn’t been like that for a  _ long  _ while, and while we need the training I think we also need the rest.” I cock an eyebrow at Shiro as he fixes his gaze on me, “You know, continue building up our  _ team relationships _ and what-not, just as important as practicing to fight in Voltron. We’ll have plenty of practice being exhausted while fighting the forces of evil later.”

The silver light twinkles in his eyes, like the first star out at dusk, as he crosses his arms once more, “Maybe you’re right.” He gives me a once over as he pulls on the strap of his flight suit in preparation to take it off, and after a brief pause he raises an eyebrow at me with a teasing smirk, “You slept in your armor, didn’t you?” 

I snort and shake my head.  _ Means he must be feeling better, or that he’s ready for the conversation to be over now, so I’ll leave him be. _ I turn my back to him so he can have some privacy as I head towards the doorway of his armory, calling, “Pfft, maybe. You don’t know! What if I like to sleep in heavy armor? So comfy and warm!” 

I pause in the doorway when Shiro’s tone returns to soldierly, “Alright, well get dressed and head to the Green Lion’s hanger. I’ll get you three some food goo while you work on the stones.” 

“Aye aye, captain.” I jest, turning towards him briefly to give him a crisp, sarcastic salute before I turn on heel and head back to my hanger’s armory. 

I strip out of my armor and my flight suit and stick it on its rack in the armory, unveiling the long forgotten clothes I wore underneath the suit; a white shirt that’s so crumpled and creased that it looks like I pulled out a year old picnic blanket from some musty corner of an attic to wear… and boxers.  _ Fuck. Pants. Right. I hate wearing pants in the flight suit… but now I have no pants.  _

I start opening the compartments underneath the armor bench and racks for spare clothes I’ve stowed here in the past and I find my thoughts wandering back to Ulaz.  _ Ulaz. The third… no, fourth Galra, technically, I’ve ever encountered, if you count Zarkon. Oh wait, no, there was also that guy back on Olkarion… Alright, alright, but he is the first Galra we’ve met that didn’t try to kill us. That should’ve been a relief… I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive… I should’ve given him a chance.  _

_ I mean, it’s not like my defensiveness was unwarranted. He did roll up to the Castle and start running around like he owned the place… granted he didn’t attack any of us, but he still wasn’t exactly like, “Hey, nice to see you, Paladins, right? Wanna help my super secret resistance fight Zarkon?” Isn’t that what allies do? Why did he have to go and act so… suspiciously if he was our ally? Or was I just seeing his actions as suspicious because I was already suspicious of him? Or was he actually being suspicious? Is that just how all Galra act? You know, when they’re not being violently homicidal…   _

I find a discarded pair of dark gray, almost black pants in one of the compartments in the walls, from a time I had to get dressed in the armory but got undressed back in my room.  _ I guess I should probably split my clothes up in both places, since I’m inconsistent of where I keep my things.  _ Once I pull them on I head out towards the Green Lion’s hanger, banishing the thoughts of Ulaz from my mind.  _ Just like I told Shiro. It’s in the past. I can’t let it weigh me down… This is a war, technically, right? Casualties… they’re gonna happen. They’ve already happened. Every ship we’ve destroyed has been testament to that.  _

This causes me to pause in the doorway of my hanger, and as I turn around I look up at the White Lion where she sits like a sentinel, the light in her eyes is out, asleep.  _ Voltron is a weapon. We talk about it like it’s a living creature, I feel that my lion is alive and sentient, but at the end of the day… like a lion, she is meant to kill. Every feature of hers is designed for war. Voltron is no different, in fact it’s even more deadly.  _

I close my eyes with a deep breath to recollect myself but instead I see Arus; specifically, I see the crisp, twisted wreckage of Sendak’s ship, the blackened crusts from Voltron’s fists that ripped it apart like ripping apart a piece of bread. I remember standing on top of a piece of this metal and being seized with this same feeling, staring at the devastation and realizing that we caused it. After Sendak took over the Castle, that feeling was completely banished from my mind, and now in retrospect I don’t feel nearly as upset about that ship crashing because I thought it must have held Galra just like Sendak and Haxus: sick, sadistic monsters with a penchant for world domination. But now, meeting Ulaz… he wasn’t like that. Sure, he was suspicious as hell, but… now I’m disquiet all together for a whole other reason.  _ What if there were Galra, like Ulaz on that ship, on  _ **_all_ ** _ the ships that we’ve destroyed in our time so far? What if we accidentally killed other Blade of Marmora members, people who are on our side, in a war that they’ve been fighting for far longer than we have?  _

I take a shallow breath and shake my head, turning and banging my fist against the metal wall beside the doorway. The blow sends a sharp jab of pain in my hand up my arm but it silences the thoughts, pulling me out of myself and grounding me in the present.  _ I can’t second guess now. Zarkon is the endgame, and this is war. It’s just like Shiro told me before, the faster we end this war, the faster we dethrone Zarkon, the faster the violence will end. That’s why we have to finish this, and quick, to stop more deaths from happening. At the time he was talking about the Galra, but now, even after Sendak… I still get it. Ulaz isn’t Sendak. There are Galra like Ulaz that exist. The Olkarions, the Taujeerians, hell, even the Arusians… they’re people that are gonna get hurt in this war, and we’ve got to end it quick to limit the number of casualties. God, how callous is that? _

_ This is not the first time or the last time I’ll think this… but what the hell have I gotten myself into?  _

I turn and head into the communal hanger.

“... break. Meet back here in an hour.” I spot Shiro in the center of the collected chamber that conjoins our hangers, standing with his arms crossed as he addresses Lance and Keith. They stand before him like true cadets, in line and paying Shiro their full attention. 

“Woo! I like the sound of that!” Lance enthuses with a pumped fist in the air, turning to Keith with his other fist, “Pound it!” 

Keith blinks at him slowly, his dark eyes are slightly glossed over like the surface of a filmy pond. Lance lets it go with a shrug, “ _ Allllright then. _ Anyway, to training! Yeah! Let’s go! I can’t wait to beat your ass, Keith!” He snaps his fingers at Shiro as he whirls to walk out of the room with an enthusiastic pep in his step,  _ he’s… amazingly energetic _ . Shiro chuckles softly to himself with a slight shake of his head and moves to walk after him, Keith immediately moving in step to follow him. As I walk out of my hanger Lance flashes a finger gun at me with a wink, “Have fun experimenting with rocks, nerd!” 

“Pfft, beats getting my ass handed to me by robots, but do enjoy yourself.” I reply with a slight eye roll and a smirk as I walk through the doorway of the Green Lion’s hanger, but not before I take a deep breath.  _ Focus. Back to the present… and stay there.  _

Inside, Hunk and Pidge are standing side by side with their backs to me by one of the tables that reside in Pidge’s hanger. The Green Lion rests with its tail between its neatly folded feet, peering down at the small pair.

As I approach, I hear Hunk’s voice crack in excitement, “- signatures means that at some fundamental level they are the same, but because we’re not entirely sure how or why-”

“-What we need to do is figure out how exactly they work, what properties they have, and how they differ.”

Hunk turns towards Pidge with a curious, raised eyebrow, “What makes you think they have different properties?” 

“Their stable energies are different.” Pidge replies, I can see her straightening her glasses as I approach from behind her, “It’s only their activated energies that are the same, so they’ve got to differ in some manner that makes their passive energies so different. We need to figure out how exactly to get these differences to come out.”

Once I’m close enough, I stand beside Pidge. On the table is a huge mess of tech shit that I can’t even begin to guess what each of them are meant to do, piled up on top of each other like toddler blocks. There are several holographic panels open with a variety of different pinging graphs and code going across them, they look to me like programs downloading or shifting through files, or something like that.  _ Damn. I really should’ve taken a data analytics class or something back at school.  _

_ Well… I would’ve done a whole lot of different stuff than that if I knew that this is where I would end up. _

Lying on top of a stack of what look a bit like old podcast slabs, Hunk and Pidge’s stones rest, glimmering under the harsh overhead white lights. Pidge glances up at me once I arrive, her gaze immediately flickers down to my chest where the White Lion stone hangs around my neck. “Let’s start with some obvious differences.” She begins, an eyebrow raised just above the rim of her round glasses, “Will, how and when did that dragon first appear?” 

I blink for a moment in confusion before I follow her gaze downward. Kevin is completely still, curled around the pendent like he’s nothing but an ornamental, decorative piece.  _ Well, that’s a damn good question. _

“I’m not sure really,” I begin with furrowed eyebrows, “It was after dark, the first day we got here. I was exploring the Castle, then it kind of began to glow, and when I looked down, he formed. Kind of out of nothing, you know... from thin air.” 

“Was there any sort of stimuli that would’ve caused it?” Pidge asks, tilting her head to the side, “Like, what were you doing just before?” She narrows her gaze at my neck and reaches out to me, holding the White Lion’s stone gently between her thumb and forefinger.

I glance up at Hunk and Pidge’s curious expressions, and only after a moment of hesitation do I answer, “At the time I was thinking about my parents. How worried they might have been about me… and that’s when he came out. But I don’t know if that’s related, I was also just pretty stressed out because, you know,  _ aliens, space, crazy alien tech… _ That too. Do keep in mind I’m no cadet.”

“I don’t know, it seems pretty likely to me that they are. Related, I mean.” Hunk answers with a pensive scratch of his head, “Was there any other reason that it could’ve happened?”

I think for a moment as Pidge drops the stone around my neck, and wordlessly I shake my head with a helpless shrug. “Fuck if I know, Hunk.”

“Alright, so what happened when he did form?” Pidge asks after a moment, her eyebrows set in a thoughtful, determined gaze that makes her suddenly look older.  _ You know, I never did ask how old she is. I just assumed she’s like, fifteen, sixteen ‘cause that’s the lowest age the Garrison will accept cadets, but she also has the stature and height of a thirteen year old. But, I think I’ll ask that later, when we’re not doing super serious science stuff. _

“Well, he kind of made some noises at me, and…” I pause, biting my lip as I reach up and clutch the stone with a hand, “Then, when I started thinking about my parents again, he kind of… I don’t know, got agitated? He kept trying to get my attention, making these quiet sounds, kind of like a cat. So I… I don’t really know what I was thinking but then I asked him if there was a way he could contact my parents to at least let them know that they were okay. Then he up and flew off.” I tilted my head to the side and looked to examine the doorway as I continue, avoiding meeting Pidge and Hunk’s eyes, “I uh… got distracted for a few minutes afterwards, talking to Keith-”

“And that’s enough of that,” Pidge huffs in with a mocking tone, waving her hand at me in a cutting off motion, “Gay aside, did you find the dragon again?”

I let out a slightly peeved huff, I can feel a burn rising in my cheeks that I try to quell as I speak, “Yes, I was getting to that!” Pidge gives me a slightly incredulous look, and after clearing my throat I continue, “Eventually we heard this loud crash on the bridge, and when we got there he was hovering over one of the panels, I think it was Keith’s, or Lance’s… it was on the right side. The Altean mice were chasing him around-”

“Him? How do you know your dragon’s a boy?” Hunk asks, raising an eyebrow at the pendant, “Did you ask his pronouns, or something?” 

I huff with a pout, “Well, I mean… I don’t know, it just seemed appropriate! If he deems to tell me otherwise, then I’ll let you know.”

Pidge waves her hand at Hunk, her hazel gaze fixed on me through the glinting glass, “The Altean mice were chasing him around where he was sitting on Lance’s panel?”

I nod, biting my lip as I continue, “When we got there, we saw that there was this panel up on the screen that showed like… this image. I have no idea how the panels worked then but Keith said it looked like something was sent to coordinates that were close to the Garrison. I’m not really sure how or why… But it was something like that.” 

Pidge and Hunk look at me for a long time, their eyes are wide. The hanger is so deafeningly quiet that I can hear my heart beating. Pidge swallows, looking down briefly at the floor, and Hunk’s expression morphs slowly, moving from shocked, to neutral, to masked as he states rhetorically, “You found a way to contact Earth?”

“-Without telling us?” Pidge’s eyes suddenly flit up and fix me with such a hard gaze I feel like an ant pinned to the floor, my heart stutters in my chest in a painful manner that feels like my ribcage is closing in around me. 

I cross my arms with furrowed eyebrows, “ _ I _ didn’t! I have no idea how Kevin did it, I don’t know if he can do it again, or whether he actually-” 

“Have you even tried?” Pidge hisses as her eyes narrow, her hands clenching into fists at her side, “Did you even bother to trace its steps? Or to ask us if we needed…- did you even  _ think _ that this might be something the rest of us would…!” She trails off, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence as she looks down at the floor. 

It’s right in that moment that I realized just how badly I fucked up. What this looks like to them. I take a shallow breath, looking at her with the most apologetic gaze and tone I can physically muster and take a step towards her, “Pidge, I’m-” 

“Save it.” She snaps back at me so quickly my mouth immediately clams shut. She glares at me through her glinting glasses, and without another word she brushes past me. I take a step back and out of the way as the Green Lion shifts, lowering its head and opening her jaws as Pidge storms between her teeth. I move to follow after her with a desperate shout, “Pidge-!”

A warm, firm hand touches my shoulder and holds me in place, a rumbling voice murmuring, “No, don’t.” 

I glance back and look at Hunk with wide eyes. His face is long and his eyes seem to glisten in the harsh overhead light, and with a slight shake of his head he speaks, “She’s gonna need a minute.” 

I feel my bottom lip tremble as I turn to face Hunk fully, reaching out and taking one of his hands with both of mine and speaking so candidly that I don’t bother to hide the shake in my voice. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I wasn’t thinking-... If I’d thought about it before, I would’ve-” 

The broken fragments of my words drop to the floor as the door to the hanger opens. I look up to see Shiro, holding three bowls stacked on top of each other in his arms as he approaches, but once he’s close and spots our expressions he pauses. My hands drop from Hunk’s, and I have to bite my fingernails into the scar on my palm to distract me from how close I am to the near panicked hysteria I feel climbing in my throat like an eldritch beast,  _ it came on so fast, everything was fine- _

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asks without hesitation, setting the three bowls on the table we long abandoned as his gaze flickers between Hunk and I, then the Green Lion, “Where’s Pidge?” 

I’m at a loss for words. I have no idea what to say. My mind draws a blank on anything useful except for the repeating, cymbal-clanging  _ you fucked up, you fucked up you selfish bastard _ . 

I look over at Hunk for help and see him merely looking at the floor with a forlorn expression that I can only describe as wounded. When he feels my gaze he briefly glances up at me before his eyes immediately divert again, one of his hands rubbing his arm uncomfortably, probably thinking just as hard as I am about something to say. 

_ I can’t do anything more besides do more damage than I’ve already done. Look at his face, he doesn’t want me here anymore. _

_ I’ve gotta get out of here. _

I turn and head towards the door with a brisk march,  _ I have to get away.  _ I vaguely hear him, Shiro or Hunk, speak but I’m out of the hanger before I can think about much else, just getting away,  _ get away _ . My thoughts are blank, and I find myself rushing past the communal hanger, lounge, into the hallway before I begin to think again, like my mind was rebooting.

_ How could I be so stupid? I didn’t even think about the implications of what Kevin did back then! I didn’t bother to think about the others, their families… We’ve been gone for just over two weeks and their families must be just as worried sick about them as mine would’ve been, and I didn’t even _ **_think_ ** _ to help. I didn’t think that they needed that reassurance that I needed. Pidge has every right to be upset with me. Hunk has every right to be upset with me. What the hell is wrong with me?  _

_ Why didn’t I think to help? _

I feel my eyes burn with the beginning of tears, but I wipe them away furiously as I take a sharp turn around a corner.  _ You have no right to cry, damnit,  _ **_you_ ** _ hurt  _ **_them_ ** _. Deal with the consequences.  _

I didn’t think about where I was going, but I find my footsteps leading me towards the bridge, taking the left turn past the bathrooms. Momentarily I pause to wonder if Allura or Coran may reside within… but I think I need an open space, that’s why I inadvertently came here. I don’t know why, the bridge has just grown to be a place of solace; I can’t cramp myself into my room, it’ll feel to closed off, I’ll be alone with my thoughts and I’m scared of what that will mean. As I come across the bridge, controlling my breathing, I poke my head around the doorway as quietly as I can. 

The bridge is empty. I thank all that is divine in this world and trudge in with shaky breaths to attempt to resemble some sort of control. 

I take a lap around the room, running my hands through my hair to get out the anxious energy before I walk to the edge of Allura’s platform and plop down, swinging my legs down below and perching them on the back of Shiro’s seat with my elbows on my knees, lifting my gaze out the windows ahead at the space beyond. 

The room is dimly illuminated a soft blue from the overhead Balmeran crystal, muted by the permeating darkness of space stretched out before me. We’ve gotten out of the main part of the red nebula, it seems, I can see hints of stars shine through the shadows, bare pricks that are hardly noticeable in the grand expanse, and with a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach I wonder at just how small and insignificant the Castle is in comparison to the fucking  _ galaxy.  _ Fuck, the  _ universe. _

_ Small,  _ I think,  _ but not insignificant. Our actions will affect the world as we know it.  _

_ God, I can’t afford to fracture us now. Not when we were just hitting our stride as a team, finally bonding and knitting our ties together… I may have just broken it. I mean it isn’t too dramatic, I think we’ll be able to mend it over time, but time is not a commodity that we have been able to have. We couldn’t afford a mistake before, but now… something so simple, so stupid and thoughtless, may just put the entire universe at jeopardy.  _

_ Now that  _ **_is_ ** _ a bit dramatic, don’t you think? _

I take a shaking breath and close my eyes, forcing air through my nose and out my mouth like a fan. I only pause and open my eyes once I feel the burn of tears subside.  _ There has to be something I can do to fix this. Something, anything; even if it can’t make the original hurt right, I have to do something to attempt to repair the tear…  _

_ Something that caused the hurt in the first place, maybe. Probably won’t fix it… but prove that I still give a fuck about Pidge, Hunk… about the team.  _

With a curled lip and renewed purpose, I yank on the chain around my neck and produce the White Lion’s stone from around my neck. I stare at its gleaming, pearly surface with narrowed eyes but specifically at the silver, filigree dragon curled around its edges, looking nothing more than a decorative piece. 

“Kevin.” I hiss, fixing my gaze like iron on the closed, diamond gaze of the small drake, “Wake up.”

The dragon remains motionless, the stone it’s curled around rocks back and forth in time with the shake of my fist clasped around the chain. Growling in frustration I shake it like a phone that just won’t work, “Come on, wake up! I need you to get up!” 

The stone remains unchanged. I clench my fists into the chain so hard the metal digs into my skin, shouting, “ _ Wake up!  _ Wake the  _ fuck up  _ you  _ stupid fucking lizard! _ ” 

It’s only then that I realize that I’m just yelling at some rock, alone in an airy room. 

I grit my teeth and snarl with anger that tastes like copper on my tongue, albeit in a more muted tone, “Fucking  _ do something _ , damnit! _ Anything!” _

The stone merely swings like a pendulum. Kevin doesn’t stir. Nothing but a decorative piece.

Exasperated, frustrated, and full of righteous anger I let out a bare toothed yell and hurl the stone across the bridge. It collides against Coran’s table at the front and falls to the floor, circling like a dropped dime before it comes to a rest just in front of Shiro’s station. I curl my fists through my hair with a shaky sigh, closing my eyes and resting my elbows on my knees with my face angled towards my thighs with concentrated, frustrated breaths. 

_ This isn’t fair. I have the stone. If it’s an emblem for unlocking my connection with my lion, then why won’t it connect? What is fucking  _ **_with_ ** _ this stupid, secretive, reveal-shit-as-we-go-along bull? Haven’t I proven myself? Haven’t I spent my whole fucking life  _ **_proving_ ** _ myself to the White Lion that I’m capable of being her Paladin? Why can’t she just give me this?  _ _   
_ _ What’s wrong with me that I’m unable to use my amulet when I need it? _

I stare at the motionless stone on the floor, and as the tears well up for the third time I finally allow them to fall, curling my hands into my hair and holding onto it like the roots of the locks will somehow help me hang onto my senses. 

_ Maybe I’m just not meant to be the White Paladin. Maybe there’s a better one, somewhere out in some galaxy light years away… a fighter pilot, with training and knowledge that I don’t have, who’s selfless and brave and charismatic… the better Paladin,  _ **_the_ ** _ White Paladin. Maybe I’m just a surrogate, a good-enough fix in a time of crisis… maybe that explains it. That’s why I can’t fully unlock her potential because I’m not ‘the one’. _

I let out a shaky breath and fix my gaze on the stone below me. The ivory-like surface shimmers like the eye of the moon reflecting off the surface of water. 

_ Well, for right now, until you can find a better Paladin… I’m all you’ve got. And I’ll be damned if I give up now, after getting this far. I’ll learn. I’ll grow. I’ll fix this and do better next time… I’ll fucking prove myself to you some more if that’s what you fucking want, but can you do me this  _ **_one solid_ ** _ and just…  _

I hop off the ledge and down below to Shiro’s seat, briefly stooping to examine the stone. Slowly, with glacial hands, I reach out and grasp the chain. The familiar warmth of reconnection surges into my bloodstream and I have to take a soft breath to accomodate for it. It feels more tangible than before, like I’m standing next to a roaring fire and can feel the heat, strange seeing as we were only parted for no more than a minute or two.  _ Interesting. _

_ Alright. Help a brother out. If I can’t get Kevin to wake up, can you at least show me how he did that… that thing where he contacted my parents so I can show the others, so that they can contact their parents, too- _

I blink as I feel something familiar enclose around my thoughts. It’s like when we’re forming Voltron, my headscape kind of stitches into the others’ as our lions click together, except… I’m not in my lion. I’ve never noticed my own essence when I’m not immediately forming Voltron but here, sitting in Shiro’s chair, I feel something, someone’s essence weaving into mine, and not just anyone’s, I recognize it immediately, just as I’m able to recognize Hunk’s or Pidge’s, that it’s the White Lion. I felt something like this with her during those emergency opportune times I saw through her eyes, except this time it’s just like that feeling when we form Voltron, a combination of the two. This way it feels like we were separate entities that came together rather than during Voltron’s formation, where we are already one. I close my eyes and hone in on the feeling with furrowed eyebrows.  _ What’s going on? Why are you here? _

As soon as her presence is firmly tangled in my mind, images flash behind my eyelids. A holographic panel, the glow of the soft blues overhead and beneath silver claws, leaping side to side on letters in a regular pattern,  _ teludav projection…  _

I blink and stare out at the black cosmos laid before me beyond the glass of the bridge. 

_ What the fuck.  _

I find my gaze sliding downward, to my lap, to the stone, at the still form of Kevin remaining curled around the amulet like he’s never moved.  _ Wow. Alright. For… did you just- _

As my thoughts begin to form the essence that had wound around mine recedes, pulling away until I’m left alone again, and it’s only then do I feel the heat in my palm. As I blink, I see that there’s a dim light emitting from the stone’s surface, illuminating my hand a soft white light like I’m holding a moon. Beside it, the black surface of Shiro’s holographic panel gleams in the overhead blue light of the Balmeran crystal.

Before I can forget the pattern I just saw, in a flurry I tap onto Shiro’s panel and awaken the system. The hologram flutters in front of me, and the soft blue reflects off of my fingers as I tap onto the instructions that the White Lion showed me.  _ Energy projections. Astral. Teludav reflectors. Low frequency. Long distance. Coordinate Input.  _

I blink and stare at the instructions, the blank spaces meant for typing.  _ Fuck.  _

_ I don’t know the fucking coordinates.  _

_ I never fucking learned how coordinates fucking work in school, nevertheless what the coordinates for the Garrison are, or something fucking useful!  _

_ God. Fucking.  _ **_Damnit._ **

Frustrated, I let out an annoyed growl and slump back in Shiro’s seat, letting my head fall back to peer out the large glass window in front of me with a resigned sigh. I can’t find it in me to be angry anymore, I’m just too tired.

_ That was kind of underwhelming.  _

…

_ “I don’t understand, what do you want from me?!” _

_ I hear a voice, clear as day, recognizable but the name and the face to the lilt eludes me. I whirl around, trying to see, but I feel like I’m wearing clouded lenses, everything is murky. I’m in some sort of forest, but my eyes are swampy, making everything shifty and uneven, there’s a lot of green and uncertainty. I can hear heavy breath, it isn’t mine but I feel it in my own lungs like it is.  _

_ “I’m trying, I’m trying! I just need another minute…!” I feel something solid strike me in the back and I’m sent tumbling forward, half blind, and I can hear voices in my ear like I’m wearing a com, “Pidge, hurry up!” “Get this door open!” “We’re being overrun!” “Pidge!!” _

**_“I’m trying! I just need more time!”_ ** _ I hear her voice shrieking in a mixture of terror and anxiety, I try to turn towards the sound of her voice but it’s all jumbled up as the voices in my head clamor all together, Shiro’s, Lance’s, Hunk’s, more voices, voices I don’t recognize but call out to Pidge in the same familiar tone that the others are using, desperately crying for help. I turn towards the sound of hers once I can pinpoint it and immediately stumble on something, maybe a root, and hit the ground, even as I try to reach out and claw my way forward it feels like my limbs are getting dragged down with gravity twice as heavy as what I’m used to. I can’t see, it’s all swampy and green and unseeing, but I have to help. Pidge needs me, she’s trying to do something that I can’t see but I have to help her, the others need help, I need to be there to help-  _

_ I suddenly feel a warm presence, enveloping me and pulling me down, into the ground. The voices suddenly cease like the drop of a hat as the earth closes above me, but it isn’t suffocating. It’s like curling up under the covers in your bed on a cold winter’s day. _

**_This isn’t yours._ **

**_There are some things that only they alone must overcome._ **

…

I wake up with a gentle hand shaking my shoulder. 

“Wake up, Will.” 

I blink slowly. Exhaustion clings to my eyelids and the  _ last  _ thing I wanna do is open them, but the hand on my shoulder is insistent. My gaze is fuzzy, but once the white and pink clouds clear I can see Allura’s sapphire gaze peering at me with soft concern. 

“Allura?” I ask with a sleep driven voice, rubbing my eyes and sitting up a little as a yawn is pulled out of me. She releases my shoulder as I stretch my whole body like a cat, every muscle groans in thanks and I feel my joints cracking delightfully as I emerge to consciousness. “Geez… I didn’t realize I fell asleep. What time is it?” 

“It is a few hours until dinner.” Allura answers as she regards me, her hands clasped in front of her.  _ Oh, good. I probably only slept an hour or so.  _ She tilts her head at me as I rise to my feet, when all of a sudden a soft clang resonates as something in my lap slides down and drops to my feet. Her pointed ears twitch as her gaze flickers down to the sound, and I follow it and see the White Lion’s stone resting on the floor. As I reach down to pick it up a familiar warmth soaks into my bones and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up like it does when you’re standing by a heat lamp. Allura watches me pull the medallion on over my head without much change in expression before she speaks in a soft, melodic voice, “Why were you asleep in Shiro’s place at the front?”

I blink at her stupidly, glancing back behind me as my sleep-slugged brain slowly processes. “Oh. Uh… I uh… I was tired, I guess, and…” 

I trail off, biting my lip as I recall just exactly  _ how  _ I ended up at the bridge. A heavy stone sinks in my chest, and idly I wonder how Pidge and Hunk are doing.  _ Have they gone back to study the stones, or… I bet Shiro spoke with them. He walked in on it, he wouldn’t have left until he had a plan to mitigate this, or at least helped them to feel better. That must mean he’s probably looking for me now, if he still isn’t talking to them.  _

“You must be exhausted.” Allura says with a quiet expression as she examines my features, “When Shiro was telling Coran and I about his training regimen…”

I smirk a little and wave at her offhandedly, “Pfft, nah, we’re thriving! Nothing like constant Voltron formation to keep you in top shape, right?” Allura blinks at me with wide eyes, and I laugh mostly to show her that I was joking before I shove my hands in my pockets, moving on, “So, how’s the work on the teludav coming along?” 

For a brief moment Allura’s shoulders sag as her gaze drifts off to the left side, her hands clasped in front of her as she speaks, “Coran’s been working night and day on it. I try to convince him to rest, but he’s a bit… stubborn.” 

“He seems the type.” I murmur in response, tilting my head to regard Allura closely. Her hair is down, half pulled back on the top with a braid, and she isn’t in her suit; instead she’s in a loose, soft pink tunic that hangs to her upper thighs and white pants beneath that tuck into the boots she would usually wear with her flight suit. She looks… tired. Not like a  _ I’m not getting enough sleep  _ tired, but like a soul-weary, sore muscle kind of tired. 

Allura’s eerie blue gaze flickers back to me, the lilac pupils in her eyes fixate like lasers, “He knows himself best. ”

I nod in agreement, letting my gaze fall to the floor with a soft sigh, “Yeah. I still hope he doesn’t work himself to death, that’d suck. To put it mildly.”

We stand there in quiet silence for a moment before Allura glances down at Shiro’s chair behind me, “Why were you accessing the teludav’s power stores?” 

I blink at her stupidly. “I… what?” 

Allura points behind me to Shiro’s chair, and as I follow her finger I see a soft symbol intermittently flashing on Shiro’s holographic panel; the system must have fallen asleep when I did, but it apparently still shows what I was up to even when the hologram isn’t up. “The teludav cannot spare anything at the moment, not without delaying our schedule.” Allura continues, fixing me with a chastising expression.

I nod, looking back at her with sudden, newfound determination, “Yes, I know, but… Okay, Allura, I know this sounds crazy… but I want to contact Earth.” 

Allura looks at me with wide eyes, silent for several seconds before her expression is wiped completely of emotion and she speaks in a gentle tone, as if to a misbehaving child, “Will, I know this has been-”

I cut her off swiftly with a wave of my hand, “No, no, it’s not…” I let out a huff, glancing down at the White Lion’s stone around my neck before reaffirming my gaze to Allura’s, “Okay, so what happened was when we first got to the Castle, like when we were still on Arus, my amulet kind of… You know I came back with it, right?” She nods, examining my medallion with renewed interest as I continue, “It’s really weird, but it kind of…  _ produced _ this dragon out of thin air.” I hold the stone aloft for her to see, examining the ridges of Kevin’s spine curled around the stone. Still unmoving. 

Allura regards the stone for several seconds before she meets my gaze, “... And what does this have to do with the teludav?” 

I bite my lip and let the stone drop back to my chest, “Well, that night when we all got back, after the fighting was over, the day before we started training… He popped up, and I think it was because at the time I was worrying about my family. I asked him to send them a message, and he flew off.” I turn slightly to tap on Shiro’s holographic panel, bringing the hologram I was looking at up just before I dozed off as I regard Allura, “I couldn’t figure out how he did it but then my lion showed me, but then I got into a dead end because I don’t know the coordinates…” 

Allura raises an eyebrow at the panel, and I take a step back so she can get a better look. She reaches over and taps on the corner and the screen rises to life, but the symbols on the screen have changed from numbers and English letters to Altean, I like to call it curlier elvish because that’s what it looks like to me. Her sapphire eyes scan the glowing board before she turns her gaze back to mine, “This is not how you send a message. These protocols and steps are how one projects an image.”

I raise an eyebrow at her incredulously. “What? But… but when I saw it before, it showed a message in English, and Keith said it was next to coordinates that were right by the Garrison, so I thought-”

Allura raises an eyebrow at me and then turns her gaze back to the panel. After a few seconds of silence she speaks with a deliberate tone, “Perhaps it was a message… Just a visual one.”

I blink at her stupidly, not for the first time and certainly not the last, “Um… Like a poster?” 

Allura tilts her head at me pensively, “Similar, yes. I think what must have happened was your… dragon, did you call it?” Allura asks, raising an eyebrow at me as she gestures to the White Lion’s stone around my neck. 

“Kevin.” I answer, giving her a toothy grin, “I nicknamed him Kevin.” 

“... Kevin.” Allura echoes, although her tone shifts a little bit, enough to make me think that perhaps it’s one of those English combination of letters that don’t have a direct Altean translation and her transladazine didn’t catch up on it. “Well, what Kevin must have done is sent a long distance hologram to Earth with the message on its surface. Like this.” Allura reaches down and clears the screen, and after a few deft flicks of her hands she straightens and gestures to the front of the Castle, up on the glass. I look up and watch as holographic letters form, like the glass is a computer screen, to show the words  _ “Demonstration.”  _

“So, it isn’t a message like we relay over the com, but more like putting up a billboard. Clever.” I murmur.

“Indeed!” Allura replies with a raised eyebrow, “Without paired communicators, it would be impossible to contact Earth traditionally without entering its solar system. Seems that Kevin found a way around it… Albeit a costly one. A projection at this distance would’ve drained the teludav greatly… fortunately we didn’t use it again until several quintants later.” She steps closer towards me and her gaze drops to the stone, and after a brief glance at me she reaches out and cups it in her hand to examine closely. I watch her with a raised eyebrow but without movement, and looking at it under Allura’s scrutiny I wonder if I had imagined earlier, when it began to glow.  _ Probably not, because of all the crazy shit that’s been happening that is relatively mild, no way that my head would make something so bland to fuck with me. Hur dur, my magic rock glows, oh, spooky, like… come on, I’m more creative than that. If my mind wanted to fuck with me it would do something like… I dunno, more imaginative.  _

“Do you know what it is?” I ask suddenly, the words plopping out before I can process them, “Kevin, I mean. How can the stone do something like that?” 

Allura pauses as her gaze flickers between me and the stone, and after a moment’s silence she releases the amulet to hang down from my neck, letting out a soft, momentary sigh, “I wish I knew specifically, but from what you have told me it seems similar to quintessence transmutation.” I look at her with wide eyes, but before I can open my mouth she shakes her head at me, “But I know nothing about what it is, or how it works. Altean alchemists studied the art for centuries, and only a few were ever successful at it, so everything I know is purely theoretical and subjective.”

I blink for several seconds to try and digest this before making a rewinding motion with my hands, “Okay, let’s back up. Quintessence transmutation?”

Allura visibly pauses, the soft overhead blue reflecting her hair to the color of starlight. She looks at me carefully for a long time as if she were about to destroy me in a political debate before she speaks again in a careful, measured tone, “As you know, quintessence is the universe’s life force; it is the energy that holds atoms together. The interesting characteristic of quintessence is that it is never created nor destroyed. How something supposedly ‘new’ is created is by changing the nature of one thing’s quintessence so that it can be applied to the new.” 

I tilt my head to the side, thinking with my eyebrows furrowed before I fix Allura with wide eyes, “The robot at the space base said that it’s the thing with the highest energy per unit, right? But you’re saying it can’t be created?” 

Allura nods, her arms crossing over her chest suddenly with a dark violet clouding her gaze, “Yes. Coran and I have been puzzling over the implications of this  _ refinement  _ we had stumbled across ever since, because somehow…” Her eyes drift far away, her eyebrows setting like they’re carved in stone, “That Galra, doing that…  _ magic…  _ is somehow forcing transmutation, but without the original and the final form to analyze, we have no idea what it is doing, or why. But what we do know is that somehow Zarkon is getting raw quintessence from somewhere else, and the process you saw was some sort of sick, twisted, masscreative version of transmutation to make whatever  _ refined  _ quintessence is.” 

I feel my breath stutter a little in my chest as I find my gaze sliding downward, settling on the top of Kevin’s head. “I… Are you saying that the White Lion’s stone did something similar to what we saw at the space base?” 

Allura pauses, I can feel her gaze on the top of my head, but after a moment she speaks, “That’s not necessarily what I’m suggesting. It’s more of a matter of…” Allura huffs suddenly, pulling my gaze upward from my stone to her face as she gives her head a deft shake. She frowns at her hands, I can see her thoughts running a mile a minute behind her eyes before she speaks again in the same measured tone as before, “Altean alchemy was something my people kept closely guarded because we knew of the implications if it would to be wide spread. A thousand years ago, other planets were beginning to realize that it was possible for the quintessence of something to be extracted. From an atom, a molecule, a living creature…” 

I frown as Allura pauses, her gaze suddenly dropping until it’s glued to the ground. 

I speak with a gentle voice, “But the Galra didn’t know about it before, did they?” 

Allura shakes her head. “Zarkon knew of it.” She pauses suddenly, looking up at the Balmera’s crystal over my head for several long moments, I can see there’s some sort of inner debate going on in her head but after a few seconds her eyes drop back to mine, speaking in a softer tone, “It is the consequences of Altean alchemy that make the Castle so special. It is how it is able to function like any battle cruiser even with a teludav on board.” 

I blink in surprise,  _ how the hell am I only hearing about this now,  _ but I have no chance to do anything but process the information as Allura continues without pause, “When Zarkon learned this he wanted to know more, but Altean alchemists have a very closed circle. Only a choice few Alteans were permitted to even study the art, even fewer could ever hoped to be successful.” Allura’s fingers drift from where they were clasped over her heart to her face, one hand tracing one of the two delicate pink marks beneath her eyes as she speaks, “It’s incredibly startling that it took a thousand years for Zarkon to find a way around traditional Altean alchemic procedure to mass transmute quintessence into something to power this war.” 

I frown a little, drinking in this information like I’m at an oasis. Only once Allura seems to have finished speaking do I pursue, “But surely it isn’t too strange that he found another way to go about it, though?” 

Allura shakes her head, “The Altean alchemic way of transmutation was found through millennia of trial and error. It seems impossible that Zarkon was able to find another way with no Altean alchemists, who knew the ancient alchemic techniques, or without any alchemical procedure to follow, in such a short time.”

I shift, sitting on the arm of Shiro’s chair and stare at Allura’s face. She’s quiet, contemplative with her fingertips brushing the pink marks above her cheekbones but otherwise without a change in demeanor. So many questions buzz through my mind that I have no idea where even to begin, I feel like my head is clouded with gnats, a gnat per question, and I can’t see straight because of it. “Okay.” I murmur, taking a breath to attempt to clear the fog to hone in on one of the many questions I have, “Okay. So… Altean… alchemists, you say? They can change a quintessence’s form? How is that possible?” 

Allura lets out a soft breath, her gaze dropping to her clasped hands hovering in her lap. “Like many things, I’m afraid that that too is lost to us.” I can see her visibly swallow and her mouth harden into a line. I reach out a hand and rest it over hers in a comforting manner without second thought. She glances up at me but doesn’t move, unfolding her hands so that they enclose around mine like my hand’s a precious apple to be borne. I watch her cautiously, she doesn’t seem to be too upset yet, so I continue, but with a cautious, gentle tone, “So… you said that it was a close guarded secret among Alteans. How do you know so much about it? Were you one of these alchemists?”

Allura is quiet for so long I wonder if she heard me. She stares down at my hand in hers, her ears twitching minutely every few seconds before she finally begins to speak with a purposeful, measured tone, “I was supposed to be. I was born with the Mark of the Chosen.” She taps the pink markings under her eyes but doesn’t otherwise look at me, her gaze in some lost space, “When I… When I was to return Altea with my father I was to take the alchemist’s test. To see if I was actually worthy of learning to be an alchemist. But…” 

I squeeze her hand as her words drift off. Her appearance is poised and composed, and I never would’ve guessed that she’s upset based on looking at her if it weren’t for how tightly she was holding my hand at the moment. Only once her hands gripping me return to a normal hand-holding level of strength do I speak again, “Coran has those markings too. Is he also…?”

Allura blinks at me stupidly, and after several seconds of silence, much to my surprise, she giggles. She releases my hand and her entire stance seems to relax with her as she laughs, and after a moment she shakes her head at me, “No, no. Coran… You see, all Alteans are born with facial markings. But the Mark of the Chosen is… a subsidiary.” She replies with a raised eyebrow, I can see the wheels turning in her head, “It’s difficult to describe. It’s not always a visual sort of mark, it’s… metaphysical.” 

My brain already twisted into seven different knots, I let this one question slide for the moment in favor of asking another, “Okay, but are you really so sure that  _ no one  _ else was working on something like Altean alchemy? What about the Olkari? I mean, your society was advanced, but there’s no way that no one else has thought about manipulating quintessence like that.”

Allura nods in agreement, “I don’t disagree. However, I do believe that there was just no way that, of the planets I knew of at the time, that they were able to come up with a similar method on their own in such a short time. Perhaps the Olkari could have, but they were subjected under the Galra for many decafeebs and it’s impossible to say.” 

I blink at her stupidly, “A thousand years? That’s short?” She blinks at me and I back at her for a moment before I huff, “Oh. Right. Y’all routinely live ‘til you’re, like, 800. Nevermind.”

Allura allows a slight smile at this, her head tilted to the side as her hands fall to her sides. I rest my elbows on my knees, propping a foot up in Shiro’s seat as I regard Allura with a soft exhale, “Okay. Wow. I’m sorry, that was a lot to digest, I hope you don’t mind me interrogating you about this.” 

Allura shrugs slightly, her sapphire gaze flickering across my features, “If it’s something that will help you utilize all of your lion’s abilities then it is well worth it.”

I flash her a smile in appreciation before I continue with a pensive tone, “So, quintessence transmutation…” I glance down at my feet and see the White Lion’s stone hanging motionlessly, gleaming turquoise in the overhead blue light; my next question forms, “You think that the White Lion’s stone can do that? Or that I can with it, or something?”

Allura lets out a soft breath, giving me a hopeless shake of her head, “I can only say that, from what you’ve told me, the creation of Kevin looks to be quintessence transmutation but whether you are able to or otherwise, I cannot say.”

I can’t help but let out a soft, thankless sigh, “Ah, cryptic, thank you.” 

Behind me at the back of the bridge, the sound of the doorway opening hisses through the space like a soft bell chime. I look up and over my shoulder to see Pidge’s burlins, so large for her feet that she just tends to stomp. 

Immediately I leap up at attention, grabbing the edge of Allura’s circle to hoist myself up, “Pidge! Pidge, I’m so glad to see you, I have something to-!”

“I do, too.” I pause, watching her expression now with rapt attention. Her shoulders are curled in on herself, holding what looks like the Green Lion’s stone clasped in her hand. Something cold covers my heartbeat, and I’m not sure why but my hands suddenly get clammy.  

Allura has a charismatic understanding greater than any other person I’ve ever met, for just by one look she quickly determined exactly the sort of situation that Pidge and I find ourselves in and acts; she makes her way towards the door with a polite tone of voice, “I’ll go see how Coran is doing. We can speak more later.” 

I pull myself up to Allura’s circle just as the door behind her closes, and as I straighten I’m more or less face to face with Pidge. She’s a few inches than me, and now that I can really see her I see that behind the smudges of her round glasses her eyes are rimmed red. Guilt wells like a painful stab in my gut, and although everything in me wants to reach out and hug her tightly but I know she’ll probably sucker punch me if I do that, based on the look she gave me when I saw her back in her hanger. 

Swallowing, I look at her with as much of my nervousness dunked below the surface as possible to speak with a dry mouth, “Listen, I’m…” I pause for a moment, expecting her to interrupt me, but she doesn’t. She merely continues to stare up at me with large, golden-amber eyes like a puppy which makes the ache in my chest that much more painful. I continue on, forcing my voice to an even level, “I’m really sorry about before. You were right, back then I wasn’t thinking about you, or anyone else on the team. If I could back and fix it I would.” 

Pidge doesn’t answer for a moment, her eyes are glossy and they move from someplace on my forehead to her hands, at the pulsing green heart of the Green Lion’s stone.  _ Oh, my find! Maybe she’ll know the coordinates!  _

“But Pidge,” I suddenly blurt, the words are flowing before I can even think about how to phrase them, “Allura helped me figure it out! How he did it! It wasn’t through a form of communication, it was like, astral projecting a message like a hologram-”

“Yeah, I know, it’s through the wormholer.” Pidge answers in the same tone as before, cutting me off mid-sentence. I pause and regard her with furrowed eyebrows, but now that I hear her voice again I realize that before, I thought she sounded sad. I mean, there’s no mistaking it, she is, it’s like a black cloak that drapes across her, but now… she seems less sad and more disturbed. Even shaken. 

“... You know?” 

“Yeah.” She stares down at her stone for several beats of uncomfortable silence before her eyes finally rise to meet mine, “Will… You remember when you told us that you used to have dreams? Like, when the White Lion was testing you?” Her voice is shaking.

I stare at her for a long moment before I briefly nod, and as I watch Pidge for longer I can see her hands have started to shake, her hand is clasped so tightly around the Green Lion’s stone that her knuckles are white. She continues with a soft voice, measured and slow like she’s speaking in iambic pentameter, “... Have you had those since we’ve gotten to the Castle?”

Immediate panic rises in my throat. I’m not sure why, or where it came from or what exactly it is about her question that scares the shit out of me but I can’t help that I’m now basically trembling like a leaf in the breeze.

“I… What?” I ask with a surprising amount of calm, tilting my head to the side to look at her more closely. “Why are you asking me that?”

Pidge swallows a little and clenches her fist over the stone. With long seconds her breath grows more and more erratic and her eyes suddenly squeeze shut. This time I don’t hesitate. Immediately I take a step forward and hug her tightly around her shoulders, she’s shaking like a phone on vibrate. She doesn’t balk, she immediately buries her face into my shoulder and after a second her arms come up around me and I feel her fingers digging into my back like talons, almost as if she believes I’ll be dragged away if she doesn’t hold onto me this tight.

“Pidge, what’s going on? Talk to me.” I murmur in a soothing tone, reaching up and gently smoothing her hair with one hand and holding her tightly with the other wrapped around her shoulders. 

Her breath rattles, taking rapid breaths before she peels away from me, facing me fully. Her bottom lip is trembling and tears have begun to stream down her face, and even as she wipes the sleeve of her large green hoodie under her nose it doesn’t seem to stem the tide. I hold her shoulders firmly so she feels the support, but her shallow breathing quickly develops into full sobs, but before I can hug her again her hands curl into fists that rest just below my collarbone and twist into my shirt. Once she has her breath again her words drip like from a leaking faucet. 

“I… I dreamed. I dreamed you all died, and… and it was  _ all my fault. _ ” She gasps and takes off her glasses, folding them and shoving them in her hoodie pocket as she immediately reburies her face into the crook of my neck, grabbing the back of my shirt like it is a lifeline as she breaks into outright sobs. 

I hug her tightly as something icy seizes my heart, something cold and familiar and horrible. I murmur softly under my breath as I smooth her hair, squeezing her shaking shoulders as she cries, “Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, we’re here. I’m here. It was just a dream... it was just a dream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This took 858157 years to write but I did it! Now that I'm on summer vacation, hopefully I'll have way more time to write this damn thing. I've been thinking about it and drafting up a storyboard for months now and I'm ready to put it to words.  
> Also, buckle up for some emotional instability! All aboard the emotional rollercoaster train!**


	3. Testing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions among the Paladins are high, but now with this startling revelation that Pidge has had a nightmare similar to the White Lion's testing dreams that Will had for all those years something else has risen in Will from deep within. Confused, upset, Will tries his best to deal with the tumultuous emotions surrounding the team before they threaten to tear them all apart.  
> \---  
> **Warnings: Panic attack portrayed, in joint with asthma attack.**

I stand on the bridge with my arms wrapped around Pidge, holding her tightly as she sobs into my shirt. Her grip on my back is like claws digging into the skin but I couldn’t care less as thoughts, mixtures of surprised, frustration, confusion, but most prominently  _ righteous rage,  _ race through my head. 

_ She’s having the dreams.  _

_ She’s having  _ **_those_ ** _ dreams.  _

_ This can’t be right. There’s got to be something else, it can’t possibly be like my dreams… But based on how hard she’s crying…  _

_ Oh God, what if they are? _

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask her in a soft voice, barely audible over her rapid breaths. They’re growing shorter, choppier, I can feel her chest heaving. Worried, I pull away a little bit and hold her shoulders. Tears are streaming down her face and she wipes her eyes with the long sleeve of her hoodie but her breathing doesn’t subside, it escalates, getting more and more out of control. 

“Pidge, look at me.” I murmur in a soft, gentle voice, and when her hazel eyes meet mine, red rimmed and unhidden by her glasses now tucked in her hoodie pocket, I continue, “Breathe. Breathe with me.” 

She hiccups as I use a hand to demonstrate, taking a deep breath in and then letting it out slowly. She attempts to copy me but each breath is ragged, rasping and choppy, still out of control. Slowly I guide her backwards towards my chair at the back of the room, touching her shoulders to encourage her to sit. She complies quickly, still trying to return her breathing to normal but it keeps getting interrupted by hiccups and spontaneous sobs like crackles in an old mic. 

“I need-  _ hn-  _ my inhaler.” Pidge whispers, her voice is hoarse and shaky. My memory suddenly sparks to Olkarion, when Pidge mentioned her asthma being one of the reasons why she hates nature. At the time I said to myself,  _ aw man how unfortunate  _ and then forgot about it. 

_ Fucking shit! I don’t want to leave her alone, but I can’t let her go without- Fuck, alright- _

I open my mouth to speak when the door to the bridge in front of me suddenly opens. I look up and meet Keith’s indigo gaze as he halts, peering at me with wide eyes. He’s changed out of his flight suit and is wearing instead that  _ goddamn jacket _ \- he’s analyzed the situation before him quickly and immediately takes a retreating step back. “Oh, I-” __

I hold up my hand to him to indicate him to stay put. His mouth clamps shut and fortunately he doesn’t move, so I move instead to kneel in front of Pidge and looking at her with a serious, yet gentle gaze, “Where is it? Your inhaler?” 

Pidge struggles, her breath comes in rugged, choppy gasps like an old car, the kind that still runs on gas, before she can sputter, “My… room. Backpack…  _ hah _ … Center pock…” She’s cut off by another wheezing breath broken with a sob. 

I look up over the seat at Keith; as soon as our eyes meet his expression immediately morphs to determination, he nods in understanding as he turns on heel and sprints down the hall towards our rooms. I refocus my gaze back on Pidge and squeeze her hands in both of mine, internally letting out a breath of relief.  _ Thank God he showed up when he did, how opportune _ . She takes shaky breaths, out of natural rhythm and shallow, far too shallow to be normal, and I try my best to keep her calm while we wait for Keith to come back with her inhaler. _ Hurry. _ “It’ll be alright, Pidge. You’re alright.” I murmur, watching her with full attention and worry as she breathes and hiccups around a sob. Her eyelashes flutter as her head lolls forward a little, she hiccups around another sob and immediately I reach up and grab her shoulder to keep her steady. “Don’t get light headed on me, now. Stay with me.” 

The door to the bridge opens faster than I was expecting and Keith bursts in, a small white device at hand. Immediately he rounds the chair and pushes it into Pidge’s hand, which she immediately grasps and fixes between her teeth. She pushes a button and a puff of air sucks down her throat with a loud gasp and immediately her breathing calms. She looks at me, then up at Keith with wide, watery eyes and takes one, two, three deep breaths before I feel reasonably comfortable with her breathing level. She sets the device, still held in a white-knuckled grip, on her knee and takes her time with her breathing. I’d never seen this kind of inhaler before, it’s shaped like a temperature thermometer but with a nozzle on the end. They make different inhalers for different types of needs, I’ve seen one that was for daily use but it didn’t look anything like this. I wonder if it’s because it’s an emergency based design, or something like it.

My attention only shifts when movement catches the corner of my gaze and I glance up to see Keith still standing by the chair, watching Pidge with hyper-focused attention. When her gaze travels up to meet his as she continues his deep breathing, he suddenly seems to falter, like he realizes that he’s a present and active agent in the current situation. He takes a slight step back, glancing first at me and then to her as he asks in a slightly confused, mostly uncomfortable tone, “Er… Glad to see you’re okay. Do you… um… want me to leave?” 

I look at Pidge with a raised eyebrow, and when she meets my eyes her irises flicker back and forth in a way that I can tell she’s truly looking me directly in the eye. I merely meet her gaze, which is difficult because eye contact always has felt incredibly intimate to me, but in that moment I want her to know that I’m looking at her as hard as she’s looking at me, so I can give her a look that I hope says  _ it’s up to you.  _

She shakes her head, taking another deep, yet still shaky breath, “No, I… you’re fine, Keith. I’m… okay.” 

I glance up at Keith where I kneel in front of Pidge and he at me, I can see the clear discomfort in his stance; rigid, leaning on one foot towards the door, uncertainty written like crystal all over his face. Pidge’s eyes are still red as anything and the wet trail where tears fell is still present under her eyes like exhaustion bags.  I don’t think he has any idea what the fuck to do in this situation, it would explain why he looks so uncomfortable; if there’s one thing I’ve figured out about Keith is that he’s no expert from dealing with emotions, far from it.  _ I wonder if it’s because he hasn’t had any practice. Or maybe no one has been vulnerable enough around him to do the same. Or, at least, vulnerable in this manner. _

Slowly he looks down at me and rests an arm on the back of the chair, his gaze slowly sliding to Pidge. As he does so, the uncomfortable poise in his form seems to melt away, instead being forcibly replaced by a concern that knits his eyebrows together where he leans on the side of the chair, practically next to Pidge. 

I draw my attention back to her, holding her hands cupped in mine and after a moment of listening to her steady breathing I speak in a gentle voice, “Do you want to talk about the dream?” 

Pidge takes another shallow breath, pulling one of her hands away from mine to wipe her eyes and then in the same movement pulling her glasses out of her hoodie pocket to perch them back on her nose. She squeezes my hand with the other, and once her glasses have returned to her face she slides her hand back into mine, on top of her knees. Her breath is deep, it doesn’t seem forced but certainly conscious, it makes me wonder if Pidge has breathing troubles like this often. It hasn’t happened since we’ve gotten here, at least not to my knowledge.  _ Has it? Is this the first time? _

Before I can pursue that line of thought, slowly, with an even breath that fills me with relief, Pidge nods slightly and speaks in a measured tone, “I… I was in my lion. I was just messing with calibrations and stuff to try and calm down after, you know, earlier.” She pauses and gives me a  _ as you know _ look, and for a minute immediate guilt wells back up in my throat. It was my fault that she was upset in that situation,  _ I  _ caused her original distraught state, but as she continues on I toss those feelings aside to focus solely on her,  “Then Shiro came to talk to me and then I… I don’t know, I guess I fell asleep because then, suddenly I was like… In a forest. Kind of like back on Olkarion, but not.” Pidge swallows, glancing briefly over her shoulder at Keith before she continues, her gaze fixed over at her chair down by the front of the bridge, “Then… she was there. My lion. Like, literally, she was there, she was a literal, green lion, but not like how she looks now. Just a straight up lion… except her fur was green. Like, olive green, light green. It didn’t take a genius to know it was her, but I also could like,  _ feel  _ it, you know?” Pidge looks up at me with a sniffle, breaking a hand away from my hold to wipe her nose on her sleeve before she drives her hand back into mine. I hold her hands firmly, internally pleased that this seems to be a source of comfort for her and that I can provide it, as she continues, “I didn’t know what was going on. I asked her what was happening, why she was there, but then suddenly she kind of, poofed, you know? Into black smoke. Then it all swirled around me then I was at the space base, you remember, on the bridge. Except I was all alone.” Pidge’s hands clench in my hold as her words rise and fall in the air with her slowly rising tone, in pitch and in anxiety, “Behind me the doors were closed but something was banging on them, and I was wearing my helmet and you guys were shouting at me through the com to remotely get a door open, not that door but another door, you were trapped somewhere. When I looked at the hologram, I saw you guys were pinned to a closed door and you were trying to get past, but the keypad was shot, so I was trying to get into the system to get it open remotely but I didn’t have anything to interface with it…” Pidge’s voice climbs an octave and then breaks at the end, her hands turning instead to hold mine so tightly that it hurts a little, but there’s no way in hell I’m saying anything about it as she continues, “Then it got quiet. So, so quiet. And when I looked over again I saw you guys… you…” She looks up at me and I can see tears welling in her eyes again.

After to listening to Pidge speaking, telling us about her dream, the more and more the icy blood in my veins begins to boil and spit like lava.  _ She  _ **_is_ ** _ having the dreams. She’s having  _ **_those_ ** _ dreams. How the fuck is this happening,  _ **_why_ ** _ is this happening? I’ve dealt with those dreams for years and years, it’s a horrible fate that I wouldn’t have wished upon my greatest enemies, hell, not even Damien.  _ This doesn’t just upset me, this is inciting some serious wrath from deep in my core, it’s bubbling forth and burning my throat like bile.  _ I know exactly what those dreams are like. The helplessness, the horror of the consequences that rest on the shoulders, the stroke inducing fear… Why is she having them? What kind of sick joke is it that my dreams are over and hers have begun?  _

After biting her lip for a moment she takes a shallow breath before letting it out in one, large exhale against our conjoined hands. The silence hangs in the air like a heavy stone on a fraying rope, and the tears in her eyes seem to subside, and only then does her grip ease. “I wasn’t fast enough, I… I tried my best but-”

“It’s okay.” I murmur, looking at her with utmost seriousness and speaking in a gentle tone, “What you’ve got to remember is that it was just a dream. I know it feels real, but we are okay.” I glance up at Keith and when he looks back at me I raise an eyebrow at him, goading him for support. 

He pauses and looks at me cluelessly. Internally I sigh, but with as much subtlety as I can I flicker my gaze at Pidge with a slightly visible tick of my head, and to my relief he catches on and clears his throat, “Yeah. We’re all okay.” Keith pauses as his fingertips drum on the back of the seat, he looks very much like I just asked him to give a impromptu speech. Pidge turns to look up at him through her glasses, and as he looks down to meet her gaze the tension in his shoulders eases a little. After a moment he speaks in a softer register, regarding her with a gentle expression that grows to be more and more natural the more he speaks, “Nightmares are like that. They like to show you the worst possible outcomes, but it’s just your mind trying to mess with you, to turn your fears against you.”

Pidge nods slightly, her hands release mine and instead twist into her hoodie like a dish cloth. I recede my hands where I squat before her, resting my elbows on my knees, and with the movement Pidge’s eyes return back to me. She takes a shaky breath, looking down at her lap before she looks back up at me, “Is… Ugh, it was just so  _ scary _ , I know it wasn’t real but… I don’t know, am I crazy? I know it wasn’t real but it still feels like the consequences of it are resting in my chest, and I can’t shake it no matter how much I tell myself,  _ no Pidge, it isn’t real, get over it. _ ” She pauses again and then fixes her gaze on me, filled with uncertainty, “Do you know what I’m talking about? Is this anything like your dreams?”

I bite my lip, and immediately flashes of white burst behind my eyelids when I blink. Dark shadows form in violet fire, screams, begging and pleading from friends, strangers, pain from deep within from physical violence and emotional as well, a violet scar over a shadowed face as they shriek,  _ ‘I wasn’t strong enough, but you, are you strong enough?’  _

“Something like that, yeah.” I murmur softly with furrowed eyebrows, biting my lip in contemplation, “I haven’t had anything like them since our first night here.” Pidge’s shoulders sink a little as her expression appears crestfallen, so I quickly add on with a firmer tone, “But the thing is, they weren’t just dreams, really, I know that now. They were tests; the White Lion was trying to screen me or something, to prove I was a worthy Paladin. I think that’s why they stopped when we got here.” 

Pidge sniffs again, wiping her nose on her sleeve, and as she speaks, her voice grows a little steadier, less vulnerable and raw, “How did you know that they were tests?”

I can’t help it as my gaze shifts up to look at Keith, and simultaneously he at me, as the memory comes rushing back. “When we went and got my lion… Well, you remember, it was when we were gathering them up before Sendak attacked on that first day… The key to get into the chamber she was in was this…” I speak more with my hands, air huffing out as I breath in frustration, lacking the right words to describe the experience, “I don’t know, I had some type of vision, or whatever. It was just like the dreams I would have on Earth, except it was real.” 

Pidge visibly pauses suddenly, her back straightening a little as her hands wind into the fabric of her shorts, “That was right before you got the stone, too, wasn’t it?” Surprised, I nod.

Keith shifts, drawing both Pidge and my gaze to him as his eyebrows furrow, “But then… say this is one of those tests: why is it the Green Lion is testing you now?” He gestures towards me with a slight of hand, “If the test is supposed to screen you out, like the White Lion did for Will, shouldn’t that have happened  _ before  _ you got your stone?”  

Pidge, fortunately, seems to have calmed down quite a bit at this point. She’s long since stopped crying, the only hint at her former distress is the dishevelment of her hair and the red in her eyes, and with this new line of questioning her expression grows to be more focused as she straightens her round glasses on her nose, “That’s true when we were operating on the assumption as the stone being a physical manifestation with our bond with our lions. This proves that that may not be the case. But the question is… Why now?” 

I bite my lip, a theory beginning to form as their words flow through my thoughts, and I verbalize it as the words manifest themselves, “Maybe it has something to do with earlier.” Pidge suddenly looks up at me, raising an eyebrow in confusion, so I elaborate, “When you got upset. Perhaps she’s been meaning to test you, but she needed you to be upset to do it.” 

As Pidge mulls this over with her head tilted to the side Keith’s eyebrows furrow, his fingertips silently drum on the back of the chair, I think unconsciously so, as he murmurs under his breath, “When we went and got your lion, you definitely were not in a good place.” I blink up at him, straightening a little where I rest low to the floor, and with my confused look he continues with a more awkward lilt in his tone, “Like, you were really nervous, about being in space, about getting your lion… the whole thing. You were shaking the whole time.”

Internally, all my thoughts just start yelling in confusion,  _ wow, was I really that obviously freaked out? I mean, I was totally wigging the fuck out, but he didn’t even know me and he could tell. Come to think of it, he noticed the whole damn day, he would grab my arm whenever I got wrapped up in my fears and return me to the present. He wasn’t uncomfortable or uncertain about it either, like he is now with Pidge. Maybe that’s the type of freaking out he’s accustomed to helping with.  _ My thoughts drift for several beats until my mind fixes on one in particular,  _ that makes perfect sense, actually. He’s close with Shiro, closer than I think he’s been with anyone, and subconscious or unconscious signs of freaking out is exactly how he expresses himself, it’s how he was earlier with training us for Voltron.  _

_ Huh. I guess I’m figuring out Keith’s personality more than I give myself credit for. Fucking hell. _

Keith seems to have moved on internally, turning to face Pidge more fully, “But this can’t be the first time you’ve been upset, is it?” 

Pidge raises an eyebrow at him, “I mean…” She touches her lips in thought until she snaps her fingers, her voice sounds almost enthusiastic, “Maybe it needed to be in an environment that wasn’t life threatening. Like before, facing Sendak and Zarkon, the Castle going against us… those are upsetting, but she might not have wanted to test me when we could die. She might have just been waiting for an opportunity, when we weren’t in imminent danger.”

“But I think that it’s still contingent on your stone, though.” I weigh in, moving now to sit on my feet as the longer I rest on my heels the more uncomfortable the position became, “Because we still had moments when we weren’t in imminent danger in between those times, but since you got your stone I don’t think we have.”

Pidge tilts her head to the side in thought, a hand rested under her chin; each moment of analytic, logical back and forth seems to be bringing her more back to herself, her demeanor is relaxing more and more the longer we talk, and it fills me with large waves of relief. “That would make sense. It wouldn’t be good if I were to…” Pidge pauses, her eyebrows furrowing as she glances down and to the side, away from Keith and I, and for a moment I can see red spreading from her ears to her face as she speaks, “You know, break down when we’re fighting or something.” 

“Hey, don’t be ashamed of being upset.” I speak up quickly, bringing her gaze back to me as I regard her with warm eyes, “I had panic attacks after those dreams like… constantly before, especially when they were bad like that. I think getting upset is a more than normal reaction, and something you shouldn’t be ashamed of.” 

Pidge manages to crack the slightest hint of a smile, running a hand through her hair to push it out of her face, “Yeah, as normal as something as crazy as this can get, anyway.” 

We sit there in a slightly more comfortable silence for a few moments, and the adrenaline rush of my worry for Pidge wanes by the second only to be replaced with a more seasoned anxiety. Pidge’s eyes rest on mine for a few moments, the red in her eyes is receding, and then her gaze flickers down briefly to my chest. I grow aware of the White Lion’s stone hanging around my neck from the glance, and immediately I find the guilt re-emerging from earlier.  _ If she just needed to get upset to start this all up, then I practically… forced this experience on her. Fucking hell, if it wasn’t bad enough before… what the fuck have I done? Does she blame me for it? _

With the thought at hand, I shift a little to ease the numbness spreading in my toes and look at Pidge seriously, “Hey, I know I said it already but I’m gonna say it again ‘til the end of time… I’m sorry about-” 

“It’s okay.” Pidge mutters, waving her hand as she lets out a slight huff. “Well… I mean, yeah, I was really upset about it, but…” She pauses, glancing at me with a bit of a shrouded gaze before she deemed to continue, “In the dream, I saw you here, on the bridge. You were sitting in Shiro’s chair, swearing at the hologram about coordinates, and over your shoulder your lion was there.” She gestures behind her to the backs of her chair, accidentally patting Keith’s hand where it rests there. He quickly retracts his hand from its surface but she doesn’t react, continuing on like nothing happened, “She was like mine, a real lion, except she was white, so you know, real obvious. She was looking over your shoulder and murmuring the instructions to you.”

I stare at Pidge for a long time, blinking in shock, “That’s… yeah. That’s exactly what I was doing. Aside from my lion, I think that was… a dramatic representation, maybe.” I glance up and see Keith’s completely confused expression, his arms now crossed over his chest, and I realize that he probably has exactly 0 idea what we’re talking about. I elaborate as specifically yet briefly as I can, “I was trying to figure out how Kevin sent that message, like back on our first day on Arus.” Keith blinks at me stupidly for a solid minute before recognition flickers in his steel gaze and his expression returns to a steady neutrality. I glance back at Pidge, raising an eyebrow at her curiously, “Is that how you knew to come here to find me?” 

Pidge nods, her fingers twist as she picks at her cuticles on her fingertips, “Yeah. I… After that, I knew you would know what to do. Or at least have an idea of what I was talking about.” 

I nod a little with a slight, sardonic smile touching my lips as a single thought crosses my mind:  _ hell yeah, I know for sure what you’re going through. _

I don’t remember much of my earlier White Lion dreams, but the earliest time I can remember having one was when I was four. I don’t remember the dream itself, but I knew it resulted in my mom dying because I ran into my parents’ room sobbing hysterically about it. Mom told me later that I refused to leave her side for the whole rest of the night and the next day, and that next night I begged to sleep with her again. I stayed sleeping with my parents until I was eight, but it was because by then my parents simply could not sleep with me anymore; there’s only so much a person can take of being woken up every night to a terrified child before it’s just too much. I don’t blame them; it must’ve been torture to put up with that for  _ four whole years _ . And even then, after that when I slept in my own room, I didn’t really learn how to deal with it by myself until I was around ten. 

It fills me with a certain, hollow sadness as I regard Pidge; while she seems to have recovered visually, I know that it will still take some time. It’s not easy getting over having such vividly real, terrifying things happen, even if it wasn’t actually real. It makes me sad that we now have this in common.  _ I never wanted that curse to be a point of bonding.  _

“You’re not alone in this, Pidge.” Keith murmurs in a surprisingly gentle tone, and as I turn to look up at him I’m taken aback at how soft his expression is, regarding Pidge in a manner similar to how I’ve seen him looking at Shiro, “We’re all here for you.” 

Pidge looks at Keith for a long time until a slight smile stretches across her face. She reclines back in her chair, and while her smile is jesting her tone fails to match it, I think from sheer emotional exhaustion, “Wow, didn’t know your emo self had it in you to say something so profoundly nice.” 

Keith flushes nearly immediately and I have to stifle a laugh, not because it was funny because of the relief that Pidge feels comfortable enough to joke. 

_ Christ, this is definitely terrifying. I hate the idea that she had this test… but at least she seems okay now.  _

_ I’m going to watch her like a hawk tomorrow, after she gets a night’s sleep. Just in case. This may be the only test, or it may not be, who the fuck knows. Before we go to bed I’m going to tell her that if she has a dream that she can come wake me up, she needs to have someone who can- _

“Do you remember much else about the dream?” Keith asks suddenly, breaking into my thoughts; his eyes are like dark iron in the light blue overhead light from the Balmera crystal, boring into Pidge like her face held answers. “You said you saw Will in here, right? Did you see anything else?”

I raise an eyebrow at him slightly incredulously, “The dreams aren’t premonitions, Keith.” He doesn’t answer or even glance in my direction, his attention is solely on Pidge.

Nonetheless Pidge slowly shakes her head, her hands worming into the material of the front of her large green hoodie, “I don’t think so. I mean, I think more happened, but those two kind of stuck out. Maybe I’ll remember if I had something to jog the memory; like I didn’t remember seeing Will until…” Pidge suddenly perks up, whirling to face me, “... You mentioned you found out a way to send a message to Earth! Through the wormholer!”

I straighten a little, but my legs have fallen asleep in this position to the point of it being painful so I struggle to my feet; my leg muscles immediately seize and ache at the release, but ultimately feel much better. I shake them out a little as I gesture to the panel in the arm of my chair, “Yeah, but it was mostly Allura who figured it out for me. Like, I was able to trace Kevin’s steps, but I didn’t really know what I was doing but then Allura explained it to me: It isn’t a message, per-ce, it’s more of a projection that’s powered by the wormholer. Kind of like posting a neome on Zyriac.” As I mention Allura, my thoughts trail backwards to our conversation, and immediately they go running a mile a minute.  _ Altean alchemy, changing the shape of quintessence. If that’s what my amulet can do, if that’s what Kevin is… Holy shit I’m going to need more information.  _

Pidge blinks up at me excitedly, and I bite my lip in hesitation to continue but the words are already slipping out before I have the thought to stop them, “But… they require power from it, the wormholer. And with Coran working on the repairs and stuff… Allura said we can’t do it until it’s fixed up.” 

Pidge’s enthusiasm immediately dies, her face crashing like a wave on the sands. Internally panicked, I reach out and touch her shoulder gently, bringing her gaze up to mine as I continue encouragingly, “But hey, when we get the thing up and running again, then we’ll be able to. What’s a couple days, right?” 

This seems to quell Pidge for the moment, she relaxes in the seat, but her expression turns more into a displeased frown that outright crestfallen, which is something I can handle better. Before anything more can be said, the door to the bridge suddenly opens in front of me, behind Pidge’s chair, and all three of us turn and look up to see Lance standing in the doorway. He’s still in his Voltron suit like he just clambered out of his lion, and he glances at the three of us with a raised eyebrow as he takes in the scene before he juts a thumb over his shoulder, “Hey uh… Hunk’s whipped up some awesome alien food and uh… Shiro sent me to get you guys. Ya know, for dinner.” 

Pidge rises and cleans her glasses, turning her gaze purposefully far downward as she turns towards the door. Lance flickers his gaze between us and then asks in a slightly tentative tone, “Everybody okay here?” 

“Yeah.” Pidge responds quickly, clearing her throat as she perches her glasses back on, “Better now. I could  _ really  _ use some food, especially if it’s food that isn’t green goo.” 

Lance hesitates but his expression loosens into something more jovial, taking up step next to Pidge and throwing an arm over her shoulder, “Dude, I  _ feel  _ that. I was his personal taste tester while he was making it, and I’ve got to say, he sure makes some good stuff considering the materials we’ve got.” 

_ He can tell she’s upset… and this is how he helps with it; deflecting and changing the subject to something more comfortable now that it’s quelled. He’s a great person to have in the aftermath of emotional distress, I think; he helps to get things back to some semblance of normalcy. _

_ Something divine is shining down on Pidge today, with Keith and Lance showing up perfect timing; getting her inhaler, relaxing a tumultuous internal atmosphere…  _

I move to follow Pidge and Lance out of the bridge, I feel Keith following me in step, as Pidge raises an eyebrow at Lance incredulously, “Oh yeah? So what’s it taste like? What’s in it?” 

Lance snorts and throws his hands up in the air, “Fuck if I know! It kind of-”

A hand touches my elbow. I glance over at Keith as Lance and Pidge speak animately together as we walk down the hall just a step ahead of us, and when I raise an eyebrow at him he gestures with his chin towards Pidge, his voice is just above a whisper, “You think everything’s gonna be okay, there?” 

I follow his gaze to Pidge. She seems completely back to normal now, visually, I can’t see her eyes from behind her but from here it doesn’t look at all like she had a panic attack under a half hour ago. 

I shrug and return to meet his eyes, “You heard her. She says she feels better now, and I believe her.” 

Keith hums in response and turns his indigo gaze to the front, watching ahead of us as Lance starts relaying in graphic detail some stunt he pulled in training today. I open my mouth to say something else, but I find myself getting distracted by his profile.  _ That jawline though.  _

He must’ve felt me looking because his gaze shifts back over to me again and I flounder. I smile sheepishly and wave a hand uncomfortably, straightening the front of my shirt to give my hands something to do, “Thanks for backing me up there.” I murmur in a quiet tone, keeping my gaze fixed to the floor ahead of us as we walk, “That was really cool of you to step up onto the podium like that.” 

Pidge snorts loudly and playfully smacks Lance’s arm in front of me, “Dude, no, get out of here with that-”

“I doubt I helped that much.” Keith’s voice melts into the others talking in a way that I almost didn’t hear him. 

I look at him a tad incredulously and gently nudge him in the side with my elbow, “Don’t diminish. You were incredibly helpful, and I think Pidge needed the support. And she most certainly she appreciated it.” I cast my gaze ahead of me where Lance and Pidge walk side by side, talking in joking tones as I murmur quietly, mostly to myself, “I know I did.” 

Keith doesn’t say anything more as Lance turns around to walk backwards, raising a cocky eyebrow at Keith, “Come on, tell her Keith, you saw me do that dive roll, right? Flawless, wasn’t it?” 

Keith regards Lance with a neutral, changeless expression, “Was it before or after you knocked me over?”

Lance waves Keith off with a raspberry, turning to walk forward again as he calls dismissively, “No no, I get it, I did something better than you and you can’t handle it, I get it.” 

“Hey,” I say as we turn a corner, “Care to pause for a second until we get food? I’d love-”

“-dinner and a show.” Pidge finishes my sentence with me, turning slightly so she can nudge me with her arm, “Yes please.” 

“Hey, I can be a whole show without Keith! And a better one, too!” Lance huffs in response, crossing his arms to shoot Pidge and I a glare. 

“Oh yeah, you do, every time you open your mouth.” I jest. I move to loop an arm over his shoulders but he’s too tall for me to do it without dragging him down so instead I just perch my elbow on his shoulder with a cocky grin, “It’s just more entertaining to see you get all flustered.” 

I’m not sure how or why, but suddenly the air around our group shifts into a new feeling that I can’t identify, it’s like we just walked past an electric fence on full power. Lance puffs up a little, his face suddenly burns a bright scarlet as he pulls away from under my elbow, “Hey now, don’t get too excited, I don’t swing that way!”

I let my arm drop as he moves away and picks up the pace to be a little bit ahead of me. I look at Lance with absolutely incredulousness, blinking stupidly for a solid three seconds before declaring, “Christ- Jesus,  _ no,  _ Lance, that’s not even close to what… I am not- I do  _ not  _ like you that. What the hell?”

Lance holds up his hands in mock surrender, shaking his head a little with a shrug in his shoulders, “Whatever you say, I’m just putting it out there.” 

If this had been any other situation with any other person, I’d be pissed beyond belief. It’s hard to find straight guys in this day and age who feel the need to declare their straightness for the world to know, but they sometimes happen, and when they do I get upset beyond belief because of how degrading it feels to be drummed up to nothing but my sexuality, or whatever it is. All I know is that it’s shitty, and it makes me feel shitty, it’s the same when people would talk about my being transgender back home, like that’s the only facet of my personality that’s worth noting. It’s a whole thing we talked about in my queer history seminar I took two summers ago at that National Student Leadership Conference I got dragged to. But this isn’t just some straight no bro-mo, it’s Lance; and what’s more, no straight guy would be saying such things with such a tense look and brilliance of red in his face like Lance is now, like he just stuck his head in an oven for a minute. 

Don’t get me wrong, my first reaction is still  _ excuse me, what the fuck,  _ but because of this I find it that my instinct is not to lash out with my tongue and tell him off. 

“You don’t  _ seriously  _ think that, do you?” I try to get my voice to sound casual, anything but angry because I still  _ am _ , but it misses both of those targets and instead it makes my tone sound… sad, or betrayed. I grit my teeth because that  _ also  _ isn’t the tone I want to use, I don’t want to make him feel bad or make him feel defensive, but my head is already spinning and I can hardly control the words I’m saying anymore, nevertheless how I say them. 

“Nah, he’s just joking, you know how straight guys are.” Pidge teases, and when I look over at her I can see that while everything about what she says is joking, the light in her eyes reflects the shift in the atmosphere around us. Something has changed, something altered and now it isn’t just a game, and she’s trying to alleviate it before it worsens, whatever that is. 

“Well, it’s not like it matters anyway, because it’s, you know, not happening!” Lance’s voice is shriller, more incredulous, and now the anger that had been masked by his strange behavior is bubbling out more intensely than before. I feel like there’s lava in my veins, and now I  _ really  _ wanna spit it in his face.  

“What the  _ fuck  _ Lance?” I hiss, pausing briefly in the hallway to look at him with a curled nose and narrowed eyes, “I’m not some  _ predator. _ I’ve always thought of you as a friend.” I wave a hand at him incredulously as he pauses as well, giving me a look much like I’m giving him now, “And  _ apparently  _ I was wrong about that.”

“Hey, guys,” Keith holds out his hands suddenly, and with the reminder of his presence my anger completely subsides into nothing but a lukewarm puddle of absolute embarrassment as he looks between Lance and I, “We’re all tired, we’ve been training pretty hard over the past two days. Why don’t we just-” 

The red in Lance’s face blooms like a midnight rose as he whirls towards Keith, his awkwardly lackadaisical behavior dropped like a curtain to reveal something darker, angrier, “No, why don’t  _ you _ just-!”

“No, stop it, don’t even start!” Pidge snaps, shoving a hand against Lance’s shoulder as a wedge to keep him from getting up further in Keith’s face. 

Keith, who had no obvious changes in expression before this, takes a step forward and meets Lance’s intense oceanic gaze with the kind of burning, pissed off fire that I feel, “No, go ahead, say it, Lance.” 

Lance opens his mouth but Pidge immediately shoves on his chest again with a firmer hand, “No, stop it! Shut up!” 

My anger is sucked out by anxiety, watching the three staring off at each other. 

_ Shit this is devolving fast.  _

_ Goddamnit, no, we can  _ **_not_ ** _ be splintering now. We’re supposed to be bonding, not fracturing… And I am certainly not helping, poking at Lance like this.  _

_ I can still try and mitigate; I’ll have to deal with it at some point, bury it and talk more about it later, but right now we are not gonna just… fight. This isn’t how we solve problems. Don’t tell Lance to back off, tell Keith so Lance doesn’t feel like that we’re all ganging up on him, and seriously, Keith, you are  _ **_not_ ** _ helping-  _

I reach out in mirror to Pidge but instead of shoving a hand against Keith’s shoulder to push him back I just get more into his line of sight and fix him with a hard look, “Hey, you don’t get started either.”

Lance snorts as he takes a step back out from Pidge’s hold, crossing his arms and tilting his head to the side as his eyes lock on me, “Oh, of course you’d take  _ his  _ side, wouldn’t you?” 

Immediate, white hot emotion, one where I can’t tell the anger begins, the betrayal enters, and the embarrassment ends, blossoms in my face like a wave that crashes over you unexpectedly and leaves you choking on seawater. I find my hands clenching into fists, I can feel my face is as red as my hair, “Who _ the fuck _ do you think you-” Suddenly I get a violent whiplash of deja vu, cutting me off midsentence where I was just about an inch close to suckerpunching him. I peer at Lance dead in the face, at his expression that I think he’s trying to show as a sneer, but I can see behind it is something more anxious, a mask that’s slightly off tilt.  _ This is just like our first day of training. We got pissed off at each other just like this on day one, and here we are going at it again.  _

_ Except this time, I know Lance. And now, in reflection, I know he wasn’t trying to piss me off, even though that’s what he was doing; he was his tool for deflecting. He’s lashing out words to get something to stick on someone that isn’t him to hide… something. Before it was anxiety. What is it now? _

The silence in the hall is deafening, I feel Pidge and Keith both looking at me but I’m a little scared to see what I’ll see in their faces, so I don’t look anywhere but at Lance. I fold up the anger that had burst forth and layer it in a book, looking at Lance with a fresh gaze and without attachment as I speak in a tone radically different than when this had started, “Lance, is something going on?”

I think that this is the first time I’ve ever seen Lance completely balk. He blinks stupidly as his arms drop to his sides, and after a second he straightens and shakes his head a little, like he just woke up from a daydream, “What? What do you- no, there’s noth- there’s  _ nothing _ going on, why would there be something going on?” He fumbles for words, speaking animately with his hands, way more animately than usual, which is saying a lot since he is a very animate person. 

_ So I’m right. There is something. But what? Can I crack it up just to the stress from the past few days, hell, the past two weeks, suddenly hitting him? I don’t think I can. I think it’s more complicated than that, because Lance is more complex than that. No way it’s something so mundane. _

“Yeah, actually, now that you mention it…” Pidge follows up, looking up at him past the lens of her round glasses like a skeptical teacher, “You’ve been acting kind of weird lately.” 

“I’m not acting weird!” Lance retorts sharply, crossing his arms as his gaze flickers between us, “I’m always weird! You’re the ones acting weird!” 

“Lance.” I murmur in a gentler tone, furrowing my eyebrows at him in a manner that’s more concerned than anything else, but before I can get in another word Lance abruptly turns on heel and waves a hand over his shoulder, “Yeah, you know what, you’re probably right, I am pretty tired, you know, long day of training, so I’ll just… see you guys.” He pauses near the end, I think because he half expected us to interrupt him, but he continues down the hall with all due haste before he takes a sharp turn towards the hangers, escaping from sight. 

The silence rings in my ears, like cotton is being forcibly shoved in them, and after several long seconds of its suppression I let out a breath, “I’m gonna go talk to him. Don’t wait up.”

I take a step to go after him but that’s all I get before Pidge grabs my arm, “Um, I don’t know if that’s the best idea. He probably just wants some space.” 

I turn a bit and face her more fully, but I find my gaze flickering back to where Lance escaped off to, not quite fully locking gazes with her.  _ Lance internalizes the fuck out of some things. I think something snapped and now that’s what’s getting him to go off. I think he does want to express it, he just doesn’t know how. _

I shake my head in response, “I don’t think he does.” I glance back at her and inadvertently over her shoulder at Keith, who merely watches with the same neutral expression as always. Immediately a hot rush of shame swells over me like the heat waves from a bonfire. 

_ Well, it’s not like it was a secret that I liked him before, but now he knows that I’ve been talking about it with the others. Damnit, Lance- that is exactly the last thing I wished he would’ve said… That’ll be something I’ll probably have to deal with later.  _

_ But for right now, I think Lance needs me. He wouldn’t have been saying such things if he wasn’t trying to hide something. The others won’t do it so I have to, I’m the best person for this; I just gotta keep a straight head on for it. _

“And if he doesn’t, I’m about to find out.” I give Pidge a shrug and bounce on my heels as I turn back in the direction Lance rushed off to, waving over my shoulder, “Again, don’t wait up!” 

Without looking back I turn the corner and go on the hunt for a wild Lance. 

This corridor’s main destination is the hangers, so I figure that’s the first good place to start looking for him. I set my jaw in determination and head that way, my mind is whirling at what the fuck I’m going to say when I get there and, hopefully, find him. 

_Hey, Lance, what the fuck was that? But in a nicer way… Like, ‘that was very uncharacteristic of you.’ I’m not mad at you… I mean, yeah what you said was super not okay and I’m kind of pissed about it… actually I’m_ ** _really_** _pissed about it… but I also care about you as a_ ** _friend_** _-emphasis,_ _since apparently that’s in question now- I wanna make sure you’re okay, though, even though that was super fucking mean to say… God, what the fuck, Lance?_

The corridor spills out into the communal hanger that adjoins all of our individual ones together, my heart leaps in my throat.  _ Am I gonna be able to get past how I’m feeling to get through to him? I’m not just gonna forgive him for what he said, what he implied more specifically, but I think that’s the point of why he said it. The best way to keep someone from digging into how you’re feeling is to drive them away. That’s not an unfamiliar tactic. I never used it, but I know deflecting when I see it.  _

_ God, keep your head on straight; this isn’t about getting him to apologize… though he fucking better. _

I twist and head towards the Blue Lion’s hanger, its doorway emblazoned a deep mediterranean.

When I open the door I see it sitting upright in the center, jaws tightly closed and the lights in its eyes extinguished, like a rigid, metallic sentinel. I walk tentatively forward, my footsteps are loud and echoing in the cavernous room, and pause several meters away from the lion to peer up at its face. 

“Lance?” I call, cupping my hands around my mouth, “Are you up there?” The Blue Lion doesn’t move, and after several seconds of silence I continue, “I just wanna talk!” 

I wait, one, two, three, four, five, six seconds until Lance’s voice comes over the verbal com system in the Blue Lion’s throat, calling out like a sports announcer, “Go away.”

“Come on, Lance, let me in!” I answer with my hands outstretched, craning my head up to look at the Blue Lion, “I just wanna talk to you for a minute!” 

The Blue Lion and all aboard are silent, there is no visual or verbal response to my pleas. I let out a sigh and hang my head, thinking carefully about my words,  _ don’t imply you’re pissed, gotta get him to let me in first.  _ I tilt my head up to speak in a louder voice so he can hear me up in his lion’s head, “Listen, I know things got intense for a second, but I’m not here to fight you. I’m worried about you, Lance.” I pause, frowning a little as I struggle to find the words, “Even if you disagree, I consider you my friend, and when my friends are having problems I want to be there to help them. So, if you really want me to leave, I’ll go, but Lance I didn’t come and find you for an apology or anything like that. I just… wanna know what’s going on with you ‘cause I wanna help.” 

The hanger’s quiet, I can hear my own pulse in my ears after standing there for several long seconds, almost a minute. The Blue Lion is so unmoving it looks to be a part of the Castle floor, a decorative piece.

_ Guess that means I should go.  _

Right as I’m about to let out a breath, resigning to turn and go, the Blue Lion suddenly shifts. I take a startled step back as it moves, kneeling down and opening its maw; the doorway in its right cheek opens with a soft  _ click.  _

I let out a breath of relief and head inside. 

I make my way up the turquoise lit stairs until I enter the pilot’s chamber, and it’s just as I remember it the first time we all piled into it on that fateful day we all got sent off into space what felt like years ago; the holographic panels are asleep, the inside metal reflecting a dark blue like the depths of the sea, it really makes the whole space feel like the inside of a glass submarine diving underwater. 

Lance isn’t sitting in the pilot’s seat, as I was expecting him to be, but rather next to it, leaning his back against the side with his feet propped up on the panel on the right. He looks up when I walk in but then immediately looks away again, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest but his expression isn’t like it was before. He looks upset, but not quite angry-upset. Now it’s more… troubled, I suppose, but that’s putting it mildly.

Cautiously, I make my way to him and sit down across from him, with my back against the panel. He doesn’t look at me but his hands begin to hook and unhook the metal plating of his suit on his thigh, wordless. After a long stretch of silence I decide to break it first. 

“Lance, I-”

“I’m sorry about what I said.” My mouth shuts as Lance suddenly cuts in, his words are abrupt but jagged, raw in a way I haven’t heard before. He lets out a huff, his eyes glued to his thighs, like he was holding his breath until the words came out, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

I can’t help but flare a little. “Yeah, that was pretty shitty.”  _ Shit. Immediately my righteous anger’s getting in the way. _ I let out a short breath, wrapping my arms loosely around my knees as I take a second to  _ fucking think about what you’re gonna be saying.  _ “But I think you meant it to be that way. Didn’t you?” 

Lance looks up at me with furrowed eyebrows, and after a beat’s pause I realize just how that sounded. Quickly I pursue my words, “No, wait, that’s… It’s not that I think you were trying to hurt me. What I meant was… You were trying to say something to deflect, and the easiest way to do that is to put attention on someone else.”

Lance’s demeanor tenses; his shoulders curl more inwards towards himself, his hands grow more insistent upon taking off and then putting back on the armor on his leg, he doesn’t say anything. He just glares down at his hands like they personally wronged him. 

“It’s okay, though.” I continue, chewing on my lip, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound accusing. Thanks for apologizing. I promise it’s okay.” 

“It isn’t.” Lance mutters, his expression taut and drawn into himself just like his shoulders as he keeps his eyes on his moving hands. 

I let out a frustrated huff, “I think I can determine that as well as you can.” 

Lance’s gaze flickers up to mine, and for a split second I can see some deep, deep pain reflected behind it, and my heart clenches in my chest. “It’s okay for it not to be okay, Will!” His voice isn’t bubbly, per-ce, it’s animated and flutters about like energetic butterflies, nothing in that respect has ever changed no matter what it is Lance talks about, but something in his tone is different; it’s quieter, subdued, kind of hesitant. “I shouldn’t have brought up your thing with Keith.”

I sit there quietly watching him for what feels like minutes, unsure of what to say. He turns his head to the side again, looking down at the floor by his boots with furrowed eyebrows, and now that I’m looking at him my confusion and suppressed frustration starts to leak out more than what I was ready for. “That’s not what I’m really mad about.” I mutter. I want to not say anything about it, I don’t want to make it about me, but I can’t stop myself from asking,  _ I have to know _ , “You don’t actually think that about me, do you?”

Lance glances up at me, a brief flash of confusion flickering across his eyes that match the walls before he suddenly cracks a grin, but not like he usually smiles; this one looks like he literally cracked an egg to get it to come out, he’d stored this expression somewhere inside and brought it out to be plastered to his face for a moment like this, he even speaks in his normal tenor, “I mean, I  _ am  _ pretty hard to resist.” 

I have to fight to keep my expression neutral, but internally I want to yell  _ don’t fucking BULLSHIT me  _ right in his face. The grin begins to recede as he watches my expression until it’s gone, like a dropped plate. He lets out a sudden huff of breath, like he’s warming his hands on a cold day, “No, no, I don’t.” 

“Then why did you say it?” It takes effort not to hiss it, a lot more than I care to admit.  _ Will, relax. For fucks sake, you’ve gotta not take this so personally.  _

Lance’s shoulders press back against the right hand side of his chair as he throws his hands in the air helplessly, “I don’t know! I just…” He huffs like a horse on a hot day, his eyebrows furrowing as his voice takes on a new tone, still as vibrant and variant as he is but more… guarded. “I’m just a little messed up, I guess. There’s a whole lot going on in my head and I don’t really know what to do about it.” He waves a hand over at me before it rests on one of his knees, his other hand racing through his choppy brown locks, “I don’t know. Guess I’m just not feeling like we’re much of a team anymore.” 

I look at him with little expression for a long moment, shifting instead to cross my legs under me. He doesn’t meet my gaze, instead tugging his hair in one hand. That’s when the pieces start clicking into place. “Is this because of the stones?” I ask quietly, watching him with a careful gaze. 

Immediately he bristles, “No! I mean, yeah, kind of…” He pauses and tugs on his hair some more before his hand falls to his lap, instead going back to taking on and off the plate armor on his thigh, “I’m just sick of how you guys go on about it like it’s a super secret club, or something. Like you’re the  _ true  _ Paladins because you’ve got your fancy shmancy  _ stones _ .” 

I blink at him in surprise, and immediately I want to say  _ what the fuck no, of course not  _ but come to think of it… from his perspective…  _ that may just be how it comes across, isn’t it?  _

“I’m sorry.” I reply after a long moment’s silence, when I’m sure Lance had nothing further to say, “I had no idea you felt that way.”

“Yeah well…” Lance shrugs, letting his arms flop to the side and rest on the smooth, cold, metal floor. “It’s not like you can do anything about it. I mean, we aren’t gonna be on the same level ‘til I get my stone, too.” Lance frowns deeply as he looks away from me, over his left shoulder at the front control panel and the control joysticks just behind him. I don’t say anything, listening and digesting his words and also nonverbally convincing him to tell me more. 

After a few beats of silence Lance turns back to face me, now looking me full in the face as he speaks with his hands, “I just… I thought I had a great connection with Blue. Back on Earth, I didn’t even know what they were but I just felt so… we were so in sync!” Lance starts to speak rather quickly, kind of like Pidge when she gets excited or nervous, “But then it just kinda… stopped. No, not really  _ stopped _ , it just was like… I thought that was it, you know? I thought we were as tight as we could be, especially after I got the sonic blaster when we all got thrown across space, but then Pidge got her stone and you guys started talking about it and…” Lance lets out a hard breath through his nose, his jaw is taut and grit as he starts cracking his knuckles one at a time to give them something to do that isn’t fucking around with his armor, “It’s stupid. I know it is, I should be happy for you guys but I just…” Some level of tension is still present in him, I can see it in how anxiously his hands move, but the rest of his frame already looks more… relaxed, fluid. I didn’t realize just how rigid his body was until now, seeing it loosen like it’s literally unloading. 

I watch him with wide eyes as he suddenly gestures to me with both hands, the more he says the faster he speaks and the more wild his tone swings, “Freaking look at you guys! Pidge is literally the smartest person ever, Hunk’s always got our backs, I don’t know where we’d even be without him, and  _ Keith’s  _ just  _ so good  _ at  _ everything  _ he does,” Lance’s tone grows derisive at the mention of Keith, his hands curling into fists on his thighs before they suddenly release with a loud breath, throwing them instead over his head, “And Shiro’s the epitome of the best Paladin! Like, I don’t even think he’s human he’s just so perfect, he’s the bravest, he’s  _ always  _ been the bravest, I mean, he’s my freaking  _ hero _ ! How the heck am I supposed to be on the same team as  _ Shiro? _ ” 

I can’t say this often, but I literally have no idea what to say as Lance lets out a hard breath, his hands dropping to his lap with his palms up like he just expelled all of his energy to share this. It’s quiet for a really long time, kind of deafeningly so, and when he looks at my expression his eyes widen a little and his gaze drops down by his shoes, “Sorry, uh… that was kind of a lot…”

I cut him off with a brisk shake of my head, “Don’t apologize.” Lance trails off deliberately but he doesn’t look back up at me, and even though the cabin is dark I swear I think I can see his complexion darken. 

“Lance…” I murmur, and as he turns to look up at me the words I’d barely scrounged up die in my throat. I rest my hands on the floor and shift to sit on feet, looking at Lance with a serious expression, “Lance, you deserve to be here.”

Lance looks at me kind of incredulously, his nose curled and his head tilted like I just suggested he should be the president. I nod in affirmation, “You’re the Blue Paladin. No one else could be but you. You’re needed here just as much as Shiro, and you are just as valuable as him.” 

Lance scoffs slightly, rolling his eyes at me, “That’s easy for you to say. You were practically born to be the White Paladin. You’re always keeping us together and freaking-” He throws his hands in the air like he’s a vinevare announcer, “Doing  _ this,  _ talking to us about our emotions like a shrink or something. That’s what you were doing with Pidge earlier, and you’re doing it right now.” He points at me in an almost accusing way that I have to sit back a little in surprise, “How can you even say that to me when you’re like, the biggest freaking part of the team?” 

I stare at him for a long time, my thoughts have to reboot like an old Apple computer before I can process his words.  _ I had no idea he felt this way. There is more to this beyond the stones thing, this is… far deeper. I had no idea that he thinks that I’m… Jesus Christ, I can even begin to explain how wrong he is. The last thing I want to do right now is be emotionally vulnerable, but this… what happened earlier is relevant. If I can show him that I’m not what he thinks… I think I know what I want to say.  _

I shift to sit back against the panel, propping my feet up in front of me, “Lance,” I begin, bracing my hands on my thighs, “I was literally thinking the same thing you are. Like, an hour ago.”

Lance blinks at me with the same confusion I felt before, his eyebrows furrowing, “What do you mean?”

“I questioned whether I should really be here.” I murmur, twisting my fingers in my lap. _Fuck this is gonna be hard._ “When we were talking about the amulets, Pidge was asking me about Kevin and what he was able to do, and I uh… I realized that I fucked up pretty big on day one.” I look up at Lance, my words are already threatening to strangle me but I have to keep going. _I’ve gotta tell him so he knows, because he deserves to know._ “Kevin found a way to contact Earth. Well, more like send a message to Earth, they can’t contact us ‘cause we’re too far away, but… I didn’t think to share it, at the time.” I look up to gauge Lance’s reaction. His expression is wide open, his eyes wide and a little stunned, but… not angry. At least not at the moment. “Pidge and Hunk got really _really_ mad at me about it, Pidge especially… and they should be. That was stupid of me not to think about what you guys would need, selfish and stupid. So, I tried to fix it. I went up to the bridge and tried to get Kevin to do it again but he-” My nose curls as the frustration rises again. I glance down at the White Lion’s stone, the little bastard still hanging there without any movement or sign of life. Letting out a sigh, I look up at Lance and speak quietly, any louder and I’m scared the rawness of my emotions will appear in my voice, “The stones can’t be a signifier of how close we are to our lion because I have no idea how to get it to do anything. I was thinking I can’t be the right Paladin if I can’t even get my fucking stupid stone to do something useful when I ask it to, and… Hell, I have no idea what I’m doing, Lance. _Ever._ ” I try to get a clamp down on how fast my insecurities are breaking through my walls in my head and onto my tongue but I can only really control the tone to be firm and resolute rather than terrified as the words slip out, “I didn’t even know how to fucking fly before, I’ve never gone to the Garrison, and frankly I’m still struggling with doing a barrel roll. I don’t know anything about how to fight, I don’t know anything about tech, I don’t know anything about space, I don’t know _jack shit_! If anything _I’m_ the odd one out here.” 

Lance looks at me with wide eyes, completely surprised. “You… I didn’t know you… You never look like you’re out of place.” He sits up a little, his feet dropping from their resting position on the panel beside me and instead crossing beneath him, “You look so confident about what you’re doing, literally all the time. Even when you’re scared, you don’t show it until after it’s all over with. In the moment you’re just-” Lance waves a hand over his face, miming a straight, hard look before he fixes his gaze back on me, questioning and confused.

I can’t help but laugh, a little harder than I think is necessary but it sounds so fucking  _ crazy  _ that I can’t stop. “Well, I’m glad that’s what you see, but dude, you have  _ no idea  _ how often I say ‘if only I went to the Garrison’ or ‘I wish I knew what the fuck I was doing’ when we do shit. Like, yesterday, when we were training I saw you shooting down those drones and I was just…” I bite my lip, gesturing vaguely over at him as I let out a soft breath, “You looked so in your element. I wished I knew what I was doing as well as you seem to.” 

Lance is quiet for a long time, I see a gleam in his eye that wasn’t there before but I’m not sure what kind of look it is that he’s making. Perhaps this is what his genuinely touched expression is, or at least that’s what I hope it is; point is that I’ve never seen him make it before. “Lance, what I’m trying to say is…” I continue, bringing his wandering gaze up to mine, “We’re all a bunch of hot messes. None of us know what’s going on, none of us were ever trained to be a Paladin. You’re just as qualified to be here as the rest of us, and frankly, Lance, I think you’re more qualified than anyone else to be the Blue Paladin.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, momentarily smirking, “Who’s the competition?” 

I shake my head firmly, “If there was someone else who wanted to be the Blue Paladin, I’d tell them to fuck off because you’re the best Blue Paladin we could ever ask for. You keep us going, you’re stubborn as hell and you don’t quit. We need that. We need _ you _ , Lance. ” Lance raises an eyebrow at me in total surprise, and with an added aside I shoot him a smirk and a wink, “What would we be without our sharpshooter?” 

Lance immediately breaks into a wide grin, “I  _ knew  _ that nickname would catch on!” The gentle tension in the atmosphere lifts with his smile and I find myself relaxing as well, letting my hands lay flat on the cool floor. Lance regards me with a softer look than before, he no longer looks closed off or stressed, and internally I let out a big sigh of relief. 

_ Okay, I think I may have managed to not split up the team… But Jesus Christ, that was a lot of work. When I woke up I didn’t realize I’d be talking to half the team to unpack their feelings to prevent us from cracking. I’m glad I did, it needed to be done, there was no way we would be able to form Voltron if Pidge was alone in dealing with her dreams, if Shiro was continuously stressed and on edge on the lookout for Zarkon, or if Lance still felt so left out. They do all still feel those things no doubt, there’s no way I can just get in their heads and just… fix it, or whatever, because that’s not how people work… but I don’t know. I think it’s helped so that they know that they aren’t alone in how they feel, and that they aren’t prisoners in their own head. I do know a little bit about what that can feel like.  _

_ Maybe that’s why Lance says I end up doing all that stuff, not just because it’s the White Lion thing but that I just get it; it’s easier to help when you understand first hand what it’s like getting caught up in your own head. _

“You really are a great person to talk to, you know.” I blink back to the present as Lance’s voice cuts into my thoughts and look into his eyes, like moonlight shining on the ocean, peering at me, “I’m sorry I was a jerk, earlier. You didn’t-”

“It’s okay, Lance.” I murmur gently in response, shifting a little bit to reach forward and pat his shoulder, “You don’t need to keep apologizing.”

“Well, maybe I  _ wanna  _ keep apologizing.” Lance counters with a bit of a huffy pout, crossing his arms over his chest. I snort and shake my head, peering up and out of the Blue Lion’s gaze at the surrounding hanger, and that’s when the emotional and physical toll of the day hits me. My stomach aches, my arms are sore and I’m starting to get a headache from how much my head is spinning.  _ I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I skimped out on lunch and now dinner. Fuck, I’m starving.  _

“I think it’s time we went and got some food, yeah?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, gesturing towards the doorway. 

Lance shakes his head, “You go on. I already ate.” 

I raise an eyebrow at him, one foot perched on the floor, “Or you don’t wanna face the others.” 

Lance crosses his arms tightly over his chest, peering at me with narrowed eyes, “Okay, I’m feeling a little called out here.” I smile a little at him to try and ease the rising tension in his shoulders. He looks at me for a moment before he lets out a breath, looking off to the side and out of his lion’s eyes, “Yeah.” 

“It’s okay to want to be left alone.” I say after a moment, nudging him with my foot to get his attention, “Take care of yourself a bit, yeah?” 

“Oh believe me, I’m trying!” Lance declares dramatically, facing me with a tired look, “But it’s kinda hard to get my beauty sleep with Shiro’s constant training!” 

I nod in understanding and slowly shift up to my knees, “Hopefully he’ll relax over the next few days.” 

Lance scoffs softly, “Yeah, hopefully.” 

I pause as I sit on my heels, watching Lance for a moment, “Do you want me to stay with you?” 

Lance quickly shakes his head, “No, you should eat. You gotta try that thing Hunk made, he called it something fancy but it’s in like, this cup kind of like ice cream-” He makes a motion with his hands in an attempt to demonstrate, raising an eyebrow at me in search for comprehension, “It’s really good.” 

“... Okay.” I murmur, “Are you sure you’re alright?” 

Lance immediately nods, making an offhanded wave, “Yeah, much better now. Go on, gotta cop that nutrition, dude.” 

I’m unconvinced; looking at Lance now he seems to be no different than normal, but I also worry that I can’t tell if that’s just what he wants me to see.  _ But there’s nothing that I can do about it now. I did as much as I could to try and help him out, but if he says that he’s okay, then I’ve got to trust him.  _

I stand up fully with a stretch, and as I head towards the door I pause, resting a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “No hard feelings, right?” 

Lance looks up at me and for a moment the playful lilt in his lips starts to broaden, but after a few moments pause it recedes like the tide. Instead he nods, raising a hand and grasping onto my forearm where it rests on his shoulder, “No hard feelings from  _ you _ , right?” 

I blink, a little taken aback, before nodding quickly. “None. Water under the bridge.” 

“Promise?”

“Promise.” 

But Lance doesn’t let go of my arm, staring up at me with a surprisingly serious expression, “Not even about the thing I said about Keith?” 

I pause before offering a slight sigh, “No. Unfortunately… that’s not gonna be the first time he’s been… that my feelings for him have been  _ brought to attention. _ ” 

“Oh. Right, yeah, I remember that whole thing.” Lance releases my arm, glancing downwards towards the floor and shifting a bit in his seat. “Sorry about that.” 

“It’s alright, Lance. I told you: water under the bridge.” I answer in a gentler tone.

“That’s not what I… I mean I’m sorry about how it’s kind of panned out with you two, you know?” Lance lets out a soft sigh, looking up at me with an expression that I can only describe as pitying, “Listen, I know you think you’re not what he deserves - your words, not mine- but I don’t think that’s true, man.” His voice falls a little, dwindling to just above a whisper with a surprisingly sincere expression, “Frankly, I think you’re kind of… you’re better for him than you think.” 

Something seizes a bit in my chest, and I find myself taking a bit of a step back away from Lance. Immediately my mind swoops down upon the feeling, the persistently nagging terror that haunts my thoughts and dreams that the black marks Damien left behind would spread and soak into Keith like spilled ink if I were to pursue it, pursue  _ him _ . 

Like he was reading my mind Lance cuts in, standing up and instead sitting on the arm of the pilot’s seat, “I know, you’re gonna say  _ ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lance,’ _ ” He does an amusing caricature of my voice that would’ve made me laugh if I wasn’t internally losing my shit, “And even though I don’t know everything about you, what I do know is that you’re literally the most selfless and thoughtful person I know, and if there’s anybody who will do their best to do right by someone else, by Keith…” Lance’s voice cracks a little, pulling me out of the strange, uncomfortable feeling that cloaks me at his intruding words. I peer at his expression closely, it looks so carefully crafted that I can’t help thinking he’s thinking of something else _. What he’s saying has two meanings, one that I can’t see.  _ “It’s you, man. You’d do right by anybody.” Lance finishes, his eyes rising to meet mine. He pokes my chest a little, a suddenly playful grin rising from the depths, “Smarty-pants ginger kid.”

I narrow my eyes at him, rising a little to the coy challenge, “I’m probably older than you.”

“Oh yeah? When’s your birthday?” Lance challenges, crossing his arms with a cocked, confident eyebrow.

“April 21, 2099.”

Lance visibly flushes, crossing his arms with a peeved expression but noticeably not saying anything in response. 

I grin in victory, resting a hand on my hip, “And when were you born, Lance?”

“... June 28.” He glances up at me and then flushes, “Shut up.” He huffs with absolute indignation, pouting dramatically, and I can’t help but snicker in response. 

“Ever heard that you shouldn’t disrespect your elders?” 

Lance turns red at the ears and gets up in my face, but despite the aggressive move his tone is playful, “Well…! Some elder you are, ancient and out-of-the-times, old man!” 

I shake my head at him and cross my arms, rocking back on my heels with an amicable grin. A warm, fuzzy feeling emerges, but there’s a deep, unsettling seed buried deep inside my chest that gives it a hollow echo. Lance’s words reverberate through them, and despite his playful aside that pushed away any room to question him they still spread like ice across the seed, growing like frost on a window.  _ What shakes me the most, I think, is that he remembers that conversation we had on the training deck. After waking up from the pod for the second time - after almost dying, apparently but we promised not to unpack that, now, Will - when everything was confusing and my head was spinning and I was scared shitless about how things had changed with Keith. He remembered when I almost spilled to him everything, I almost told him about Damien. I don’t know if that’s something I should be worried about or not, my head says yes, but I’m not sure if I should really be disturbed that Lance remembers. It’s what friends do.  _

_ I think I can crack this up to be that I just really hate being emotionally vulnerable.  _

“I’ll… keep your words in advisement.” I say after a moment, biting my lip as I avoid Lance’s gaze. “There’s a lot going on, you know? Last thing on the list is dealing with feelings.” 

Lance nods appreciatively, chuckling softly to himself as he crosses his arms, propping his feet beneath him where he sits on his pilot’s seat.

“Just so you know,” I look at him where his leans, his hands now rested comfortably on either side of him on the arm of the seat as he looks at his boots, “Anything we say to each other is gonna be between us. I kind of took it as a given before, but after…” Lance swallows a little, his eyes flickering down to the ground, “I just want you to know that. I’ve never shared the stuff you’ve told me with anyone, and I never plan to.”

“... Okay.” I murmur. 

I’m not sure if I believe him just yet. I’ve never thought about Lance sharing my thoughts with anyone, but now, thinking back… I once almost told Lance about Damien. Like, that’s a  _ huge  _ drop, and now, thinking about this… I’m kinda glad I didn’t. I don’t think Lance would ever turn it into a weapon, I don’t even think what he said earlier was even a draw from that talk we had on the training deck, but it does immediately fill me with paranoia about what I’ve said to Lance in the past.  _ It’s not that I don’t trust him, I think. It’s just… I don’t want something like this to happen again and he uses something more serious against me when he’s hurting.  _

“Seriously.” Lance states firmly, his eyes are set with determination, “It’s… something I’m kinda working on. I don’t wanna be like that, before. I just am still... Figuring it all out, I guess. I get freaked out when people start poking around in my head, I’m not… used to it.” He looks down at his feet, his eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. 

I blink at Lance with newfound respect, something warm settles in my chest. “I understand.” 

“But I’m gonna do better!” Lance states with finality, nodding to himself as he straightens a little, “‘Cause I know now that you’re a poker. I can… prepare myself.”

I raise an eyebrow at him and shake my head with a slight smirk, “I guess you could say that.” On a more serious note I fix him with a gentle, firm look, “But Lance… if you want me to not, you can say so. I promise I’ll always respect your boundaries… I just gotta know where they are.” 

Lance smirks a bit and shrugs,  _ “I’ll keep your words in advisement.” _

I roll my eyes at him and turn around to head towards the door, “Ass. You sure you don’t wanna come with me? Or I can bring you some food back, if you want.” 

Lance shakes his head, sliding back down to the floor next to his chair, “Nah, I’m good.” 

I’m just about to go down the stairwell when I hear Lance call, “Uh, Will? … Thanks.” 

I let out a slight breath, smiling quietly to myself as I respond, “Any time, Lance.” 

I head down the stairs and out of the Blue Lion’s mouth, my footsteps echoing in the large, open air of the hanger before heading over to the doorway, my stomach growls the whole way.  _ I wonder if the others are still there. I kinda hope not. Last thing I need right now is deal with something else… Only two people that I haven’t emotionally dealt with today is Hunk and Keith, and well…  _

Thinking about what happened earlier and now thinking about this bullshit going on with Keith, my stomach gets all tied up in painful, aching knots.  _ God, as if it wasn’t bad before… Keith and I have had such a fucking wack relationship recently with all that’s been going on and now he knows that I’ve talked to the others, or at least to Lance, about it. Fuck, he’s probably embarrassed, or his head must be spinning with all kinds of bad things like if I’m a blabbermouth or- Or perhaps not. Shiro’s told me that Keith’s talked to him about…  _ **_it_ ** _ before, so maybe he thinks it was like that? No, that’s different, he’s said before that Shiro’s like a brother to him, I can’t exactly say that about Lance. I mean, I think we’re pretty fucking close considering we’ve only known each other a week, trauma bonding is a hell of a thing, but that’s nowhere near the level of trust and companionship that those two obviously have. Fucking hell, I don’t really have to talk to him about it do I? Maybe I can just ignore this thing too, pile it onto the ‘Bullshit going on in this confusing relationship with Keith’ corner of awkward and bad things that have happened to result in all this… That would be easiest. I should not go down that rabbit hole with Keith, GOD can you imagine: ‘hey, let’s unpack our feelings  _ **_right now_ ** _ like there’s no tomorrow.’ or… I don’t know, maybe I should? Clear the air? But would it actually? Fucking hell, why is this so stupidly complicated? If we weren’t trying to save the world, in  _ **_any_ ** _ other world... I don’t think it would be. But here we are.  _

_ I’m tired as hell of being confused.  _

_ “In any other world, you could tell the difference, _ _   
_ _ And let it all unfurl into broken remnants, _ _   
_ __ So smile like you mean it, and let yourself let go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> Like I said, a whole lot can happen in the span of a week.  
> Now that I've got some freaking free time I can actually write some more of this damn thing, and man am I relieved. I've got so many ideas...   
> End quote is "In Any Other World" by MIKA, I really like him as a song writer if you couldn't tell. Felt kinda relevant. Wouldn't you say?  
> **


	4. Slumber Parties Are The Cure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days on the Castle are never dull as the Paladins continue their daily training, but now with the delightful mix of terrifying dreams. Each Paladin is experiencing their time differently, some are struggling more obviously than others and for a variety of reasons... Reasons that might be difficult to fully comprehend.  
> **Warning; mentions of torture (and fun things involved) about mid/beginning in italics, during a dream; can be skipped if it makes you uncomfortable**

It’s only day two of our break from imminent danger and I’m so physically, but mostly emotionally, exhausted that the one thing I’m thinking about is  _ food  _ and then  _ sleep.  _

What’s more is that I don’t expect anyone to be in the kitchen as I make my way from the Blue Lion’s hanger because I must’ve been with Lance for an hour or more, we’d talked long enough that the others would’ve finished eating and parted ways, so imagine my surprise when I see Hunk’s form over by the ovens and Pidge sitting with her feet crossed beneath her on the countertop behind him as I walk through the kitchen door. He looks up when I enter and grins, waving at me with an ovenmitted hand, “Oh hey, Will! Where you been? We missed you at dinner.” Pidge straightens her glasses and peers over at me, eyebrow raised with an unspoken question in her gaze,  _ so what happened? _

I shrug as nonchalantly as I can manage, briefly glancing over at Pidge, “Was just… dealing with some things. I heard you made some good stuff, though, there doesn’t happen to be any leftover, is there?” 

“Yeah, actually, one more.” Hunk points over his shoulder to the counter, where there are a bunch of small, laptop sized boxes stacked up on top of each other with a strange cocktail-looking glass sitting beside them. Inside is full of what looks like white marshmallow fluff full of red and purple stalks poking out at awkward angles. Intrigued, I pick it up and raise an eyebrow, “What is it?”

“Coran said it’s calnorp. I’m not quite sure what that is… but it makes for an excellent souffle!” Hunk responds with an enthusiastic grin, turning his back from the oven and pulling off the white mitts, tossing them on the counter beside Pidge. She sits quietly with her feet tucked under her, her chin in one hand and the other rested on her knee as she takes turns watching me and watching Hunk. 

I look down at the cup’s contents and experimentally use one of the stalks to scoop some of the white fluff up to eat. It isn’t sweet, like I expected it to be, but rather it has a kick of spice like in hot sauce but without the actual hot sauce flavor, but rather it tastes kind of like… spicy coconut. Or something like it, it’s definitely a spicy kick but with tropical undertones. It’s a really… odd combination, but it’s actually pretty good. “I feel like I should be more concerned about what the food is that we eat around here,” I murmur as I use the stalk to get some more of the fluff, “But it tastes great, Hunk, thank you.” 

“Well, Allura assures me that the green goo provided gives us all the nutrients we need,” Hunk leans on the counter next to Pidge, who’s cleaning her glasses on her hoodie, “But still. Can’t hurt to _ spice _ things up, huh?” 

Pidge snickers, leaning back on the palms of her hands in a manner that leads me to believe he’s probably made that joke multiple times at this point. I roll my eyes and snort in response, “Christ, you’re as bad as Lance.”

Pidge perches her glasses back on her nose, turning her body to face me more fully, “Speaking of Lance, what happened? You’ve been gone for a while, and he’s not with you.” 

I blink and inadvertently glance over at Hunk, who gives me a look with raised eyebrows and a slight, taut grin, prompting Pidge to answer my unasked question, “Believe me, everybody knows about what happened in the hallway.” 

“Oh great.” I murmur, shifting so that I’m leaning on the counter next to Pidge while eating my spicy coconut fluff on a stick. 

“Yeah, it made for a  _ great  _ dinner conversation.” Hunk mused in a manner that I honestly can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. “Shiro immediately was all like,  _ ‘Ah! But the team!’  _ But when Pidge told him that you went after him to sort things out he seemed to be alright with it, but you should probably talk to him about it. He said he was gonna go looking for you two about ten minutes ago.” 

Immediately my shoulders sink at the prospect and my limbs feel so much heavier, like iron links have just been clamped around my wrists and ankles.  _ God, please no. The last thing I wanna do is talk any more about anything emotional, especially  _ **_my_ ** _ emotions.  _ Hunk gives me a once over as I twirl the red, spiny straw around the fluff and adds, “I’m sure you can do that tomorrow, though. You look pretty tired.” 

“Thanks, it’s my new beauty routine I like to call Constant Stress.” Thankfully the pair grin at my joke but the smile doesn’t quite reach their eyes as they look on with an expectant look. 

After some silence, I realize they still want an answer about what went on with Lance, so with a dreary sigh I answer in a low, quiet tone, “Honestly, there’s not much for me to say, but… I do think we need to make a better effort to be more… you know, inclusive.” 

“Inclusive?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. You know, inclusive. As a team.” I scrape the side of the clear cup for the rest of the fluff; it’s surprisingly filling, I don’t feel the need to get anything else to eat with it, which is fortunate because after a new meal the last thing I want is the same old green goo. Pidge and Hunk are both still looking at me, so I set down the empty cup and rest my hands on the countertop behind me, “Listen, I just think that… there’s a bit of a discrepancy right now, what with us having the stones but the rest of the team doesn’t. And because we don’t know what they do or what they’re for, it’s leading to a bit of a divide, at least I think that’s how it feels on Lance’s end.” 

“He told you this?” Pidge asks with a slight note of incredulity, peering at me studiously through the lens of her glasses. 

“... Not specifically.” I answer,  _ a half truth _ , “But I can extrapolate. I don’t wanna speak for him, again there isn’t much  _ for me _ to say, but I do think that that’s something we should work on to keep up a good team dynamic.”

Pidge snickers suddenly, pushing up her glasses as she leans back on the palms of her hands, kicking her legs in front of her with jarring  _ thunks _ as they hit the metal below the counter, “You sound just like Shiro. Just drop your voice an octave and say the same thing and it’s an exact replica.”

I roll my eyes and smirk a little to myself, running a hand through my hair to keep it out of my face. Hunk turns, rather periodically, to look at the oven behind him, which I see has a sole blue flickering light on the small screen above it. When he turns back around he shrugs at us, “I mean, sounds like a good idea. But listen, I think that we really need to start getting a headway on the amulets… like, pretty soon.” 

I raise an eyebrow at him curiously, “Why’s that?” 

Hunk pauses for a moment and mimics my expression, “‘Cause it’s a little important to understand why we have them and how they work?” 

I huff a little and give him a look, “I  _ mean  _ why do you think we “really need” to know them now? Think we have a deadline?” 

Pidge straightens a little and rests her elbows back on her knees, picking her feet up and tucking them back under her, “Not that, but it’s probably a good idea to do it now, before we get to the Blade of Marmora’s base. After that I’m not sure what our next plan of action is gonna be.” 

Hunk leans next to the active oven, waving a hand with the other rested under his elbow, “Well I’m assuming it’s stopping Zarkon.” 

Pidge narrows her eyes at Hunk with a huff, “Yeah, I know  _ that _ , but you know how Shiro is. He sets a goal, we follow through until it’s done, and then it’s a new goal. Who knows when our next real break is gonna be, after this week?” 

I hum softly to myself, tapping my lips in thought as I think aloud, “Have you asked him? What his plan is I mean, after we visit the Blade of Marmora’s base?”

“Shiro didn’t say anything, no.” Hunk answers, moving to put the white oven mitts back on his hands, “But Allura did mention that she’s waiting to hear from Ryner back on Olkarion. Apparently now that their planet is free from Galra control, they’ve been clearing out the rest of their quadrant of other Galra forces.” 

I raise my eyebrows in surprise, making an ‘o’ with my lips before I nod appreciatively, “Reconvening and pulling all of our allies together is a great idea for setting up our next move. Just gotta get the Blades on our side then  _ bam _ : coup time.” 

“Or at least planning for it.” Pidge adds, scrunching her hands into the fabric of her hoodie as she glues her eyes to the wall, just beside where Hunk rests a hand on the oven’s bars where he’s probably waiting for whatever is within to finish baking.  _ I remember when Zarkon was chasing us through space Hunk mentioned he likes to bake when he’s stressed because it helps him to relax… I wonder if he’s feeling stressed right now.  _

“Since you’re here, actually…” Pidge suddenly pipes up in a more serious tone, far diminished in any hint of light than it was a second ago, and it brings my attention to zero in on her face, which is placid but far away, “Hunk, I think you’ve gotta talk to Will about your dream.” 

Immediately everything in my body tenses as I turn to Hunk, my blood turns to ice and my heart stutters in my chest. “Not you, too?” I can’t help the defeated, deeply sad tone from melting into my voice as Hunk turns his back on us, sticking his ovenmitted hands inside and then pulling out a sheet of what looks like little red squares; it looks kind of like fondant that’s no bigger than my thumb and cubic like sugar for horses.

“It isn’t… I don’t know. I…” Hunk stumbles over his words as he turns and sets the cookie sheet down beside me, and I can see in his eyes that despite the lackadaisical shrug in his shoulders that something is unsettling him. “It wasn’t scary, like yours’ sound like. I think it was about to be, but I didn’t get too far into it.” Hunk’s takes off his oven mitts, setting them down beside the sheet, “Try them, they’re something I’m trying out, they’re kinda like sour tongues but squishier, like rubber gummies.” 

I watch his facial expression with rapt attention, but when his eyes rise to meet mine I can see that he isn’t nearly as panicked as Pidge was earlier, which honestly is incredibly surprising to me. It’s not that I think he’s a coward, per-ce, nothing at all that strong, but of all of us he certainly has the strongest  _ flight  _ response. “Do you wanna talk about it?” I ask in a soft voice, and for once eye contact is not at all an issue as I look into his soft, rich chocolate gaze; it’s the best way to get a read on him. 

“Well to start with, I wasn’t  _ really  _ asleep.” Hunk admits, sheepishly looking down as he cautiously tests the heat of one of the red cubes before popping them into his mouth, “I just kinda dozed off while we were running a-  _ oh my cROW THIS IS SOUR! _ ” Hunk dramatically makes a face much like Mr. Roads when he was about to bust on a kid for misusing  _ ‘thou art’  _ before he’s able to swallow the cube down. With a shake of his head, he lets out a breath and starts collecting the cubes into a small, clear, martini like glass that was left off to the side of the boxes, “Sorry, erm. They’re still good, I promise, you should try one-” 

“Hunk.” Pidge gently reminds. She turns beside me to face him fully and props a foot up on the counter behind me, her arms wrapped around her other leg with her chin perched on top of her knee. 

“Right.” Hunk clears his throat, placing the last few cubes into the glass, “Well, it was only for a minute. I was kind of in this field, like the rocky part of the desert around the Garrison except it was all big, cracking rocks, and then my lion was there, came walking around one of them all mysterious-like.” He forms his hands around an imaginary object, his gaze surprisingly focused despite being so far away, “Like, literally a lion, just like the lions back on Earth except it was a much brighter yellow, kinda like a school bus.” 

“Seems to be a theme.” I murmur under my breath thoughtfully, a burning hand clenched around my heart before I gesture for him to continue, “Then what happened?” 

Hunk shrugs in a surprising amount of nonchalance, “Well, for a minute he kind of just looked at me, and I was like, ‘Oh hey, this is new, what are you doing here?’ and then he turned around and I think he wanted me to look down at a crack in the ground so I did but then as soon as I did Shiro woke me up for dinner. I was only asleep like… five, ten minutes, max.” 

My heart drops to my stomach as it ices over, and I have to take a steady breath to calm the pounding blood in my ears.  _ This sounds just like the beginning to Pidge’s dream, and the beginning to all my lion’s tests. Even though he only got the beginning… Oh God… No. This can’t be happening, not to them. What the fuck is going on? _

“We were just talking about it after the others left.” Pidge says after a moment’s pause. I break my gaze from the floor and look up to meet her soft, hazel green eyes that glimmer in the overhead light, “I think it was like what you and Keith were saying earlier; our lions have been meaning to test us since we got our stones, but needed us to be in a safe environment to do it.” 

I can’t help but grit my jaw, turning my gaze to glare at the floor, “That’s fucked up.” 

“Yeah, I can’t say I’m excited about it either.” Hunk mutters in response, frowning to himself, “You told us a bit about your dreams, and then hearing about Pidge’s…” He trails off, his eyebrows reaching into the air as discomfort mixed with confusion melts across his broad features in a manner that makes me want to punch a wall in helpless frustration.  _ WHY. Why do they have to do this? This isn’t fucking fair! Even if they’re only getting one test, Hunk still has to finish the dream that got started… probably tonight. His anxiety about it is probably more than enough of a bad emotion that the Yellow Lion will need to do it, or whatever the FUCK is the reasoning for this… And that’s just assuming they’ll only get one.  _

_ I will throw hands with these metaphysical lions. Fucking watch. _

_ But that means tonight they’re probably gonna have these dreams. I have to be able to protect them, and if I can’t stop them from happening…  _

I turn slowly, pushing off of the counter and standing now while facing both Hunk and Pidge, “Tonight,” I state in the most level and even tone I can manage, “If you have another one of those dreams… Come wake me up.” 

Hunk immediately shakes his head with a brushing off gesture, “Dude, I’m sure it’s gonna be-”

“No, I mean it.” I interrupt with a brisk shake of my head, frowning deeply as I stare them both dead in the eyes with as much dark seriousness as I can muster, “I had to go through having these dreams alone, and I’ll be damned if you have to do the same. If you have another dream, I want you to come to me. I… want to be there for you.” Sudden emotion strangles my throat, one that’s some sickening mixture of fear, fury, and frustration, and prevents me from speaking as articulately as I wish I was able to. 

Hunk and Pidge share glances with one another, ones that give me the impression that they’re gonna try and talk me out of it before Pidge suddenly perks up, whipping around to face me like lightning, “Wait a minute, I’ve got an idea!” I raise an eyebrow at her as she suddenly pops off the counter, turning to grin at Hunk and I in turn, “Let’s have a slumber party!” 

I blink a little incredulously at her for a solid minute. “How’s that supposed to help?”

“Well, we sleep together in the same room, so if one of us has a dream we’ll already be right there together to help and talk it out.” Pidge’s face is shining with enthusiasm, her teeth on full display in her winning smile.

“Oh! That’s a great idea!” Hunk visibly seems to brighten, his eyes glimmering like citrines, “And even if we don’t have nightmares, which I  _ really hope  _ we don’t… it’ll still be fun, kinda like the Garrison! Except we don’t have to get up for classes, and… Will’s Lance, here, but that’s okay because Lance  _ snores- _ ”

“So do you. Far worse than him, actually.” Pidge huffs with her face crunched in distaste, her slim arms crossed over her chest. 

I pause, biting my lip for a moment before shrugging, “I mean, if you guys think it’s a good idea, then let’s do it.”

“Hooray!” Pidge immediately jumps up in excitement before she bolts for the door like an excited dog at the prospect of a walk, “Okay, so what we should do is drag all of our mattresses into one room, make one big megabed-” 

Hunk nods in agreement and leaps on the enthusiasm train, moving to follow Pidge, “Oh, and get all our blankets and stuff and get into one big pile and sleep, like… like…?” 

“A bunch of chupers!” Pidge exclaims. 

“Yeah! … Wait, what’s a chuper?” 

“It’s like an Altean cat, basically, they’re really cool, they have three tails-” I hurry after them with quick steps, a mixture of excitement and anxiety swirling in my chest. 

I’ve never slept in the same room as another person besides my parents before. Even when I was with Damien, we never like… spent the night in the same bed. He lived at the Garrison and I couldn’t come there, not that I’d want to, so he would sneak out and come to my place. but he’d have to leave before morning so the Garrison didn’t catch him out. And with my parents, they wouldn’t let me sleep with them after I was eight because the nightmares drove them to exhaustion. I don’t personally count camp because we were out in the woods, we weren’t in one room sleeping  _ together _ , per-ce. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited; I want to have this new experience, and Hunk and Pidge seem like really great people to try it out with, but an inner part of me is a little nervous.  _ What if I have a bad dream? Back on Earth with test-dreams I would always bolt upright and freak out, at camp that was the reason why I copped out of sleeping in cabin with other campers because I didn’t want to disturb them or freak them out. But I don’t know if I react the same way now as I did before, when I’m having test dreams or whatever, since my dreams are all different now, but how would I know? It’s already so weird to not have a test-like dream, but I’ve found some of these new dreams can be just as bad as the test dreams. What if I get one of those? Will they notice? What if I wake them up on accident? This is for them, not for me, they’re gonna be the ones with those fucking awful dreams, and I don’t wanna have a bad one and make it all about me…  _

We arrive to the darkened hall where our bedrooms lie, and Hunk waves his hands towards his room, “Wanna do it in mine?” 

“Aww, come on, why not mine?” Pidge pouts in complaint, furrowing her eyebrows at Hunk indignantly. 

Hunk raises an eyebrow at her with a small smirk that looks rather incredulous, “Do you have the floorspace?” 

Pidge opens her mouth with a finger raised before she closes it again, opens and then closes, like a silent robocleaner. She turns, as if admitting defeat, before she suddenly does a full circle whirl back around and points at me, “Well, what about Will’s room?”

Hunk raises an eyebrow over at me, and with a slight shrug I gesture towards it, “Yeah, sure, I don’t mind. It’s pretty clean in there.”

“Yours it is.” Hunk says diplomatically. Pidge turns with a victorious grin and heads down the hall towards her room opposite of Hunk’s and to the left of mine, opening the door and grabbing the mattress from her bed.  _ Ah. My room’s closest, in terms of mattress dragging distance.  _ I can see inside that there’s all kinds of stuff littered on the floor of her room: clothes, flight suits, hardware, what look like pictures, papers, all scattered about like a small tornado bust into her room.  _ Lack of floorspace indeed. Hunk would know, they must’ve all been living together if they were the same squadron at the Garrison.  _

Hunk turns towards his room, but pauses just in the doorway. Around his room I can see soft yellow lights, the stringed orbs that decorated the railings at the party on Olkarion that illuminate the space like a sun porch at dawn. He turns to me then, an eyebrow raised as he gestures over his shoulder, “Can I bring the lights?”

“Sure thing.” I murmur, before looking up at their configuration around his room, “Won’t that be a pain to bring down, though?” 

“I don’t mind it, it doesn’t take too long.” Hunk replies, biting his lip as he glances over at me sheepishly, “They uh… they’ve been helping me sleep. They’re just the perfect amount of light, you know? Not blinding, but not too dim. The total darkness is just kinda creepy sometimes.” 

I flash him a gentle, understanding grin. “Yeah man, no problem. Want some help?” 

Hunk nods appreciatively, so I follow him into his room to help take them down. They’re affixed to small hooks that circle the whole room, ones that I’ve never noticed before and it makes me wonder if they’re also present in my room. I’m not as tall as Hunk so I have to jump to get them off the hooks, but with our combined effort it takes less than a minute to get them down. I coil it up at hand, looking down at one of the orbs that pulse with the gentle light. They aren’t what I was expecting, which was something electrical caught in glass, but rather it looks like the light is coming from something soft and squishy, like a piece of flint about the size of my thumb, but the whole thing illuminates the soft glow that gives it that Christmas lights-like effect. 

“I’ll go set them up.” I say, heading towards the doorway. Hunk nods and turns towards his mattress, yanking it off with a softened thudding noise. When I walk into my room, Pidge has just dropped her mattress down on the floor, slotting it right next to my bed. As I look around my room for those hooks like what Hunk’s had, Pidge touches the holographic panel in my wall on the far sides and presses a button. With a soft buzz, the frame of my bed starts to sink, bringing the mattress down until the frame it was sitting in is gone completely, eaten by the floor. I blink and raise an eyebrow at Pidge in curiosity. 

She turns, looks at my bed on the floor before she grins at me, “That okay?” 

I pause briefly, looking at my mattress next to hers before I offer her a gentle grin, “Yeah, fine by me. Just didn’t know it could do that.” I hold up the lights at hand with a raised eyebrow, “Wanna help me set these up?” 

Turns out, Pidge is too short to even reach the ceiling hooks, so once Hunk has dragged in his mattress he helps me string them up while Pidge arranges the blankets, making one big bed out of the three mattresses. Once it is all done, collapsing on my side, I look up at the soft lights that seem to embrace the cozy atmosphere; it fills a part of me with deep, spreading warmth that I can’t possibly describe accurately, the closest feeling I’ve had is when I would camp in the woods with my counselor friends, sitting around a firepit, singing stupid songs, and bullshitting until dawn.

“I hope Shiro doesn’t wake us up early tomorrow.” Pidge mutters as she straightens with the deed done, cleaning her glasses on her hoodie hem. 

“Wonder what he’d say, seeing us three stumbling out.” Hunk jokes with a lilted grin, heading towards the door, “I’m getting my pajamas, then I’m gonna  _ sleep.  _ Oh my  _ crow  _ I’m so tired… Wait a minute.” Hunk narrows his eyes at the wall over my head before he gasps, “Whoa, you kept those?” 

I blink and follow his gaze overhead and see the pictures of Pidge’s selfies with a chained up Lance holographically pinned to the wall. I return my gaze to him and let loose a wicked smirk, “Hell yeah, that shit was hilarious!”

Pidge and Hunk both break out in laughter, turning to exit my room with indistinct words, “He was so upset the whole time, it left me in  _ tears! _ ” “I just wished Keith was there, imagine how insane he would’ve gone-” The door closes, leaving me in the quiet, soft atmosphere. With the light I can’t help being reminded of that night at Olkarion, looking out at the shadowed treetops and dark spotted sky littered with stardust… and Keith, standing there with me and staring up at them as well.  _ Slightly intoxicated, funnily strange sounding Keith, but Keith nonetheless. _ I stand up and step out of my pants ‘til I’m in my loose boxers, kicking them aside and getting under the covers of my side of the ultra bed we’ve constructed.  _ Even though it ended with such a turbulence of emotions, before it was… nice. He was so relaxed and warm, it was strange to see but it wasn’t unnatural. It makes me wonder, not for the first time and not for the last, if he remembers that night at all, or if there’s anything about it that he regrets. Well, I can think of a few things he could regret, but…  _

The doorway opens as Pidge and Hunk return together, clad in their pajamas. Hunk’s left his orange ribbon behind, making his forehead looking surprisingly bare, and he’s in some cozy, dandelion yellow pajamas hemmed with a dark sunset orange, cut like a poncho with long sleeves. Pidge is still wearing her hoodie, but she wears green pants much like Hunk’s that seem to swim around her ankles. 

“I swear, whoever the last Green Paladin was, the clothes they left behind are  _ way  _ too long for me.” Pidge complains, hiking up the legs as she collapses onto her mattress, bouncing momentarily before coming to a rest on her back, “They must’ve been as tall as Shiro, or taller!” 

“I know this is crazy,” Hunk starts as he gets into his bed next to Pidge, “But I think my clothes are way big for me too. Some of them, anyway, others are just kinda big.” 

Pidge raises an eyebrow, folding her arms behind her head as she takes off her glasses, “I can’t imagine anybody being bigger than you. They must’ve been a giant!” 

I lay on my side with my head propped up with one hand, raising an eyebrow at the pair, “I thought Coran had them sized for us, or something, because my clothes fit me just fine.” 

“Well, he  _ seriously  _ miscalculated on some of my clothes.” Pidge complains with a deep grumble, lifting up one leg into the air to reveal the remaining excess length of the hem of her pants drape nearly to her midcalf. 

“Maybe. I wonder how he did it, anyway.” Hunk thinks aloud, I can feel him shifting through our conjoined mattresses, “Suppose it’s another fancy Altean tech thing… I wanna see it, though. How do you think it works?” 

“I dunno.” Pidge responds, followed by a heavy yawn as she rolls around to lay on her stomach, resting her glasses on the ground by the wall and out of crushing distance. “Too tired to think anymore.” She raises her head the barest bit only to declare in a whispered voice, “If Shiro tries to wake us up as early, I’m gonna kick his ass up and down the training deck.” 

I chuckle softly to myself, shifting to lay down on my back as I murmur teasingly, “I, personally, would love to see that fight.” 

“Shut it.” Pidge grumbles teasingly into her pillow, prompting a short laugh from the other side of the bed. Eventually, I listen to their breathing getting deeper, slower, until I swear within ten minutes the pair are asleep. 

_ What the fuck.  _

_ Is it really that easy for everyone else? I feel like I have to go through seven different scenarios in my head and have three revelations before I can get to sleep. Unless I’m  _ **_really_ ** _ exhausted, like I was last night, but that happens rarely. Well, since we’ve been at the Castle it’s happened a little more often, but…  _

I roll onto my side and close my eyes, letting out a soft breath and willing sleep to take me, but I find my thoughts wandering through the events of the day.  _ I hope Pidge is wrong, about Shiro waking us up tomorrow. I think he only woke us up so early is because he wanted to get to that strict training regime, but maybe after we talked today he’ll at least wait ‘til a reasonable hour to get us up. Relatively reasonable, of course. I don’t think we need to stop training, and I don’t think Shiro would even allow that, but it doesn’t need to be that intense. I hope I was able to show him that… I think I did. But I guess we’ll just have to see.  _

_ I wonder what he dreams about at night. I know my mom once said that a lot of people don’t dream, but considering the amount of stupid traumatic shit my brain comes up with while I’m dreaming I can’t imagine Shiro sleeps peacefully either, considering all he’s been through. On the other hand, he does appear well rested every day, not at all like he wants to go back to bed… Or maybe he just projects that to the rest of us, a demonstration of strength, or at least hiding a perceived lack thereof from the rest of us.  _

_ And holy shit. That conversation with Allura, that… holy fuck, I have so many thoughts. Is my stone really some kind of… what’s it, quintessence morpher? Altean alchemy? What kind of fantasy novel bullshit is that?  _ I curl a hand around the stone where it rests around my neck, thumbing the smoothed surface and then along the rugged, ridged back of Kevin curled around the side.  _ I have so many questions, how the fuck is that even possible being one of them. I mean, crazy shit’s been happening to us since day one, but this? This is kind of like… exceeding that. The ability to just… change things around me, like come on, this isn’t Brans Academy.  _

My thoughts proceed, growing sluggish and less coherent by the second, until I finally slip into slumber. 

…

_ I can’t see where I am. It’s dark, perfectly so, but I’m aware that I’m sitting, looking out at something but I can’t tell where the inside ends and the outside begins. It’s warm, just on the cusp of uncomfortably so, I can feel sweat sticking to the back of my flight suit. A light flies across, I realize I’m looking out of a window at the night sky, back on Earth. It’s a comet, a big one, more like a soaring meteor, falling through the sky, straight towards my position… Until it crashes just out of my sight behind a mesa. Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear a familiar voice cry out, ‘Shiro!’  _

_ “What do you want?” I hear his voice, tired but still clear, enunciated with an angry hiss like a broken pipe just over my shoulder as I watch the smoke clear from the fallen comet; it’s emblazoned with red light.  _

_ “Your friend wanted to hear from you.”  _

_ Cold terror seizes me at the base of my spine as I whirl around with wide eyes behind me. I’m no longer sitting; I’m lying face down with what feels like something heavy pinned on top of me, my arms are bound behind my back and my shoulders are screaming as pressure is applied to them. I watch with wide eyes as a violet shadow crosses my vision, nothing distinguishable but a golden eye with a red light for the other and a massive claw, crackling with pulses of lilac-tinted electricity. As it passes it reveals Shiro on the floor, on his knees, his arms also bound behind his back with his head hung and his teeth bared like the centerpiece to a gruesome play. _

_ I try and struggle to my knees, pressing the front of my shoulders into the ground for leverage but a sharp clawed hand grabs my hair and forces my face into the ground, keeping me completely pinned. Growling, I cry out in a voice that echoes as if we’re in a vast cavern, “Stay away from him! I’ll kill you, monster!” _

_ The shadow doesn’t even falter, circling Shiro’s kneeling form like a hungry wolf. Shiro twists his head from side to side with a bared snarl, poised and ready to attack even from a position of such disadvantage. I hear a breath in my ear followed by a dark chuckle, purring with a sickening amount of pleasure, “You have no claws, little lion.”  _

_ My vision is blinded with blasts of electric wine, I feel nothing but the sharp ache in my shoulders but I can see the dark light course straight through Shiro. I try to break free, I try to get up, I try to do  _ **_anything_ ** _ but I can barely breathe in this position, nevertheless move. I squirm, gasping in an attempt to get free but it’s fruitless; all I can see and all I can hear is Shiro convulsing in agony. I grit my teeth and close my eyes to block out his screams until suddenly I feel it blast through me. It isn’t me,  _ **_I’m_ ** _ not getting electrocuted, but I can feel Shiro’s pain as if it were mine; it’s secondary but it’s just as agonizing, it hurts, it  _ **_hurts,_ ** _ I just want it to stop, please, stop hurting him-  _

_ I open my eyes and see the shadow of a massive clawed hand descend onto Shiro and push him to the ground, but just the outline like I’m watching it happen from a backlit window. I feel the thing on top of me push in sync with it, I let out a sharp cry as I’m plunged, pain, bone breaking pain as I’m crushed underfoot- _

I bolt upright with a gasp. Frantically I rub my eyes and try to gather my bearings, my hands floundering to my chest and sides, counting my ribs under my fingertips, but it takes me a second to coherently think, there’s these soft yellow lights surrounding me, why are there..?

There’s a soft snore to my left, pulling me out of my confusion. I blink and rub my eyes and as I look over to find the source I see Pidge and Hunk, curled up like cats in a tangle of blankets. Pidge’s arm is tucked under her head and stuck out right where my head just was, her hair is wild and askew, and her back is pressed against Hunk’s side. He sleeps on his stomach, his face stuck out to the right as he breathes through quiet, peaceful snores. Strangely… it calms me, seeing them at such peace. I let out a shaky breath. The dream’s already receding, I can barely even remember what it was that I was scared of as I watch Pidge and Hunk’s chests rising and falling in time with their rhythmic, deep breaths. 

I lay my head back on the pillow and close my eyes, feeling Pidge’s arm resting just underneath it like an extra support. It takes but a minute to fall back asleep. 

… 

“Shh! You’re gonna wake him up.” 

“Well, it’s not  _ my  _ fault you’re sitting on the covers! Gimme!” 

An elbow stabs me in the shoulder, startling me wide awake right as Pidge practically falls on top of me with a surprising squeak. I blink and sit upright, causing her to roll off of me and glare at Hunk with an accusing look, straightening her glasses on her face. Hunk raises his hands in surrender, smiling sheepishly, “Sorry Will!” In response to Pidge’s glare he pouts a little, peering at her apologetically, “You were standing on it!” 

“Good morning to y’all, too.” I jest, sitting upright and rubbing my eyes. “Got the time?” 

“Half past eight.” Hunk answers helpfully, tapping his fingertips together as he lets rip a powerful yawn, “Man, I slept like a  _ chuper! _ ” 

Immediately I perk up, looking between Pidge and Hunk in turn with a close, inquisitive, and searching gaze. They both look pretty well rested, actually, much to my surprise. They don’t look shaken, or even at one point like they were shaken. “Did either of you get any dreams?” I ask with a note of surprise.

Simultaneously both Hunk and Pidge shake their heads. A huge sigh of relief racks my shoulders, releasing a gale force-like wind through my lips as Hunk gestures vaguely with his thumb towards our big conjoined bed, “Yeah man, maybe I did, but I don’t remember it. I just woke up like, ten minutes ago and I feel great!” 

“Yeah, me too.” Pidge tilts her head towards Hunk in agreement before she fixes him with a narrow eyed look, “I probably would’ve slept  _ longer _ if  _ someone  _ hadn’t taken all of my blankets!”

I pull myself to my feet, relaxation and relief settling over me like sunshine on my shoulders.  _ Maybe those dreams are it..? Maybe there’s nothing to have been worried about.  _

_ Can’t say for sure, yet. It was just one night. _

“Just in case, though,” I say as I step over our big bed, opening up a drawer on my dresser and rifling for some pants, “I think you should sleep in here again tonight, too.” I pull out my jeans I brought from Earth, pausing as I turn to them with a raised eyebrow, “If that’s okay with y’all, that is.” 

“Hell yeah!” Pidge nods enthusiastically in agreement, shooting me a broad, glittering grin that warms my chest indescribably as she leaps to her feet with surprising energy, “Come on, let’s go get some breakfast goo, I’m starving!” 

Hunk groans in agreement, heading towards the door, “You’re speaking my language, Pidge!” He pauses in the empty doorway as Pidge hustles past him, raising an eyebrow at me, “Coming?” 

I nod, waving him out, “Yeah, but I’m gonna shower first.” 

“Sure thing.” Hunk waves with an amicable grin, and as the door closes behind him my room suddenly feels incredibly quiet. I take a moment and breathe, closing my eyes with one, two, three deep breaths before I let loose a big, relieved smile.  _ They didn’t have test dreams. God, I was so worried about it… bless all that’s divine on this bitch of an existence that they were spared that nightmare.  _

I grab one of the multitude of white shirts in my drawer and head out towards the showers. 

I take my sweet time with some hygiene, singing under my breath nonsense songs and soaking in the relief of the moment until it’s time to move on to the next thing.  _ No doubt Shiro’s got some training in mind for us to do today. It’s a good sign that he didn’t wake us up crazy early, if it’s almost nine and he hasn’t come barging down doors like the Rocket Basher. Maybe he really did take my advice to heart.  _

I head to the dining room once I’m ready to go, running my fingers through my hair to get it to fall into place with relative ease. It’s getting shaggier, the hair just above the nape of my neck is about as long as one of my fingers are thick and for a moment it pulls me into a big picture perspective.  _ We’ve been up in space for two whole weeks. I don’t need a haircut yet… but my hair’s gotten longer since we’ve been here. That’s wigged. Time, progressing? In my Castle?  _

I shake my head at myself as I walk through the doors of the dining room. The whole team’s present: Shiro’s sitting at the head of the table with an already empty bowl of food goo, speaking to Coran who sits to his left. Allura’s next to Coran with her back to me, speaking to the animated Pidge and Hunk who are on the other side of the table, facing me. Lance is sitting next to her, waving his hands as he counters a point, but they’re all speaking all at once that I can’t pick out words of specifically what they’re talking about. Keith’s sitting to Shiro’s right, peering around at the others and probably listening to their conversations with a contemplative look. As I enter he glances up and we lock eyes for a moment, all of a sudden the embarrassment of the events of yesterday flood back and flush my cheeks to the point that I have to break eye contact relatively immediately.  _ Damnit, Lance. Just when I thought I’d moved on from this…  _

“Morning, Will.” Shiro welcomes me warmly as I step in, gesturing with his chin towards the middle of the table, “Saved some goo for you. Eat up, I want us to get to our lions as soon as you’re done so we can start training.” 

“Aww, man!” Lance cries dramatically, slumping back in his chair as he turns to look at me. I come around him and sit at the empty seat next to him, grabbing an empty bowl from the middle of the table as Lance elbows my side in a gentle, teasing manner, “Quick, go back to bed so we can get some more free time.” 

I snort and wave him off, getting down to the business of obtaining some nutrition, “ _ You  _ go back to bed.” 

Hunk raises a hand as he spoons some goo into his mouth with the other, speaking around it with a muffled voice, “Mph-I’mll go back to-bem! I domph minph!” 

“Come now, Paladins, training may be difficult but it’s far from being a waste of time.” Coran raises a finger as he turns to us from the far end of the table, an eyebrow cocked as his mustache moves with every word like a wiggling worm, “For example, without the years and years of training, my grandfather couldn’t have had the opportunity to work on the Walnumph initiative, which meant he couldn’t have had the opportunity to apprentice under the chief engineer of the court, which meant that he couldn’t have-” 

“What Coran means to say is that your training is an important part of becoming better Paladins.” Allura interrupts rather gracefully, resting both of her hands on the table as she glances over each of us in turn, “There is always room for improvement.” 

Now that I’m looking at Coran on the opposite side of Allura, I can see that he looks a little bit different, and by different I mean absolutely exhausted. There are deep creases under his eyes like crow’s feet and it pronounces on the sky blue of his markings to appear almost like stickers on his skin, his lips are drawn downward in a slight, pinched frown that’s so uncharacteristic my first thought is  _ damn, are you sick?  _ Other than his appearance, he seems to be acting the exact same, though, down to the eccentric mannerisms.  _ This is probably just what Alteans look like when they’re tired. Allura did say he’s been working like a blue collar capitalist on the wormholer… Poor bastard.  _

Lance grins cockily, shifting with an arm on the back of his chair to turn and face her as he brandishes his charm, “Well, I’m not sure about that, Princess, can you really improve on  _ perfection? _ ” 

Keith sets his spoon in his empty bowl, looking over at Lance with a deadpan, perfectly serious expression that’s also surprisingly genuine, “No one’s perfect, Lance.” He straight up looks like he’s informing Lance of a fact that Keith’s a little surprised that Lance didn’t already know.

Lance gasps in mock hurt, a hand pressed to his chest, “Well,  _ I  _ am!” 

Shiro lets out a soft sigh that’s barely audible as I set my spoon down in my empty bowl. Seeing this, he stands up and gestures towards the door, “Alright team, get to your lions and meet outside, we’re gonna work with our lions first.” 

Allura rises from her seat, twisting her hair, which was half down before, into a braided bun at the nape of her neck, “Coran and I will be alternating from the bridge and the teludav chamber as we continue working on the calibrations if you need us.” She pauses as she raises her gaze to Shiro’s, “I’m afraid we’ll have to keep our weapon systems offline, however, to ensure that the Castle’s power stores aren’t being overextended.” 

“Of course, Princess, do what you need to do to get the teludav back up and running.” Shiro responds as the rest of the team rises in junction, heading communally towards the doors. 

“Yeah, do what you need to do.” Lance responds as he gets out of his seat, flashing Allura a pair of finger guns and a wink; I think if I roll my eyes any harder they’ll up and roll out of my skull back to Earth. Allura doesn’t seem to notice this, however, she merely nods with a polite smile as she rests a hand on Coran’s back as he too rises, speaking to him in a low tone that I can’t quite catch.  _ I’m glad that Coran and Allura are teaming up on this. I feel bad that I can’t help in some way, but I know for sure there’s nothing my dumb ass can do except stay out of the way.  _ I pause and watch them for a moment before I turn and follow the rest of the team out and head towards the hangers. It’s relatively jovial, Keith and Shiro lead the pack, speaking to one another while Hunk, Pidge, and Lance tumble together behind them like a group of children tied on a string, speaking all at once with wild levels of energy that make me reel. It’s a little too intense for me at the moment so I hang back a bit, heading towards my hanger once we arrive to the communal and slipping into my armory to get into my armor without an exchange with the others. I don’t feel upset, nor tired, just… at peace, I suppose. I didn’t feel the need to interact with them, they seemed to be perfectly happy among each other without me. 

As I’m stepping into my boots, a voice slips into the small chamber of my armory, “Hey. How’d you sleep?” 

I look up at Shiro with a raised eyebrow; he’s already suited up, his helmet hanging from one hand and otherwise appearing as he always is: rested, and ready to go. I shrug, shifting and sliding my ankle back in the boot, “Can’t complain. I appreciated the extra hours, though, thank you.” 

“Well, you did make a pretty fair point yesterday. It’s just as important to rest as it is to work.” Shiro answers with a slightly roguish grin, leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression falls to one that’s more serious after a beat, “Got a minute?” 

I pause and glance up at him, twisting to pull my chestplate on over my head, “Am I in trouble?” 

Shiro shakes his head quickly, “No, not at all. I heard about what happened yesterday. First with Pidge and then with Lance.” He begins, his voice dropping to a respectfully low volume as he steps inside my armory just a few feet away from me, “I talked to them after, and you guys seem like you’re fine this morning but… I just wanted to check in with you.” 

I straighten a little as I start to affix my gloves on, looking up at him intermittently, “Yeah, we talked it out. Pidge had every right to be pissed at me but I think that she’s alright now, which is what matters. And with Lance, it was a little rough, but… We understand each other now, I think. Or, at least, I think I understand him better, and can act accordingly.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow at me, a smile teasing the corner of his lips, “That’s all pretty vague.” 

I snort a little, standing up and turning away to grab my helmet from off the wall, “I mean, it’s the truth!” I pause, hugging my helmet to my stomach with both arms as I turn to face Shiro, “It isn’t really for me to say, but I do think that he’s just been feeling out of touch with the team because of the business with the stones. That’s just what I’ve gathered, though. If you want more information you should probably ask him about it.” 

“I already did. It’s  _ you  _ that I’m checking in on right now, Will.” Shiro responds in a softer voice, almost like he’s a teacher speaking to another in the hallway between classes. 

I raise an incredulous eyebrow at him and shrug, “I mean, I’m here, right? Can’t say I’ve got one thing in particular that’s messing me up or whatever. Everything that’s been going on has fucked me up in some way or another, but it’s all getting blurred together enough that I can just kinda take it as it comes now, I guess. All puns intended.” I add with a slight smirk, mostly to add a small layer of humor on top of the surprising amount of truth I laid out like a carpet.  _ Yikes, I just opened my mouth and started talking; I should probably moderate what I’m saying more, just so Shiro doesn’t worry about me. Not like he has anything to worry about…   _

“I can understand that.” Shiro responds diplomatically, tilting his head at me a little with a hidden glint in his iron gaze, “Is there anything in particular you wanna talk to me about?” 

I narrow my eyes at him, a hollow itch beginning to permeate in the core of my chest, “You’re not trying to worm out anything about Keith, are you?”

Shiro pauses before he cracks into a genuine smile, chuckling briefly but mostly to himself, “Actually no. But since that’s where your thoughts went-” 

“Oh my  _ God,  _ Shiro.” I groan dramatically, adjusting my hold on my helmet with my eyes cast down,  _ don’t you fucking dare blush _ , “You know, not everything is about gay feelings. I’m a complex person!” 

“I know.” Shiro murmurs softly in a surprisingly gentle manner, “But if you do wanna talk… about Keith, about your stone, your worries… anything, I’m here for you. You know that, right?” 

I rise my gaze to meet his, like the glint of a drawn sword in the light, and feel something warm yet troubling deep in my throat like a dry swallowed pill. “Yeah,” I mutter, “I know.”  _ Nothing in particular comes to mind at the moment, but I’ll keep you posted? But I probably won’t. _

“Good.” Shiro nods at me in an encouraging way, a calm, peaceful expression on his face that suddenly gives me a moment of violent deja vu.  _ I’ve seen that same face… not this smile, no, but this look in his eye of kind understanding, relief. Huh. Weird. _

Shiro turns his back on me, heading through the door of my armory, “Meet you outside.” 

“Yeah!” I respond on impulse, trying to clear the fog of dreams from my mind, “... Yeah.” 

…

We practice forming Voltron again for a while before we head into individual lion maneuvers, and already there’s a dramatic difference in how we’re operating today vs. yesterday. Shiro’s allowing breaks in between exercises, not long, but brief enough for us to mentally switch gears and recollect ourselves so we can launch into it with full attention and preparedness, and in each exercise it doesn’t feel so much like _life or death all the time everytime_ , now it’s only occasional bursts of _Ah! Life or death!_ _Okay we’re good._ Which is so much healthier than it was yesterday that it’s completely fine with me, no problems whatsoever. We break for lunch, Hunk goes to pile up some goo to bring as the rest of us sit down at the dining room table, we’re a little tired but it’s absolutely nothing like yesterday’s tired. It’s like… _ah, I did a good work out_ in comparison to the _ah, thank God I didn’t fucking die_. 

“You know, gotta say, I think I’m getting better at this whole lion piloting thing.” Lance grins boastfully where he reclines in a seat, his feet kicked up on the chair across from him under the table with his arms behind his head, “It’s feeling really natural! Not that it wasn’t before, because it was-” 

“That’s great, Lance,” Shiro responds with an amicable smile in his direction, “Everytime we fly is another chance to develop and deepen our connections to our lions.” 

There’s a general bob of heads all around in agreement as we melt into our seats, relishing in the brief moment of thoughtless peace that comes with an extended break. 

“Hey, so, question,” Hunk pipes up suddenly, twisting so he can look at Shiro at the head of the table, “What’s the plan after we go to the Blade of Marmora’s base? Like, what’s the next move?” 

Next to me I see Keith tense up out of the corner of my eye, prompting me to look up and investigate him further. His gaze is glued to his bowl, staring blankly deep into a place that isn’t here until I think he grows aware of my looking at him, to which he seems to mentally shake it off and proceed to eat like normal.

“It’s gonna depend on what happens when we get there.” Shiro answers, setting his spoon in his empty bowl, “Hopefully they’ll join the Voltron Alliance, or at the very least be able to give us some valuable intel. Allura’s been waiting for word from the Olkari, they’ve been clearing their quadrant of the Galra, so once we’ve got the Blade of Marmora on our side we’re going to combine our forces and come up with a plan to take down Zarkon using the Blade of Marmora’s perspective and intel they’ve been gathering for the past thousand years.”

I raise my eyebrows with a respectful nod, raising a glass of water in the air, “Cheers, I’ll drink to that.” 

“Do they even have enough information to craft a plan of that magnitude?” Pidge asks with a tone of incredulousness, pushing the leftover goo in her bowl around with her spoon.

“They’re the Galra that have been resisting Zarkon since the very beginning,” Keith answers with a surprisingly sharp tone that draws my attention, “They probably have more information than anyone in the galaxy.” 

“And that’s what we’re counting on.” Shiro nods in Keith’s direction, his steel gaze hovering on him for a beat longer before he stands up in his seat, “Let’s hit the training deck until dinner, then we’ll rest for the night.” 

Lance groans in joy in agreement, pushing his chair out with his gangly legs as he stretches to his feet, “Heck  _ yeah _ that sounds like a plan!” He grins at Shiro as he heads towards the door, the rest of us quickly rising in junction to follow after him. 

We filter together onto the training deck, unconsciously I head to the right side where Shiro’s ritualistically sent Pidge, Keith, and I for hand to hand training. Shiro heads to the far wall’s holographic panel to set up the training sequences as Hunk taps the wall drawer where the water bottles are kept, passing them out to each of us. 

“Thanks.” I murmur to him as I take it, taking a sip before setting it to the side with my helmet. 

“You know, I’ve been wondering, who’s been filling these up?” Pidge asks as Hunk hands her one, setting it down with her helmet next to mine. 

“I haven’t.” Lance replies helpfully, shrugging as he pulls on his helmet, summoning his bayard and experimentally peering up the barrel. 

“Maybe they fill up automatically, or something?” Hunk offers, shrugging a little as he pulls his helmet on as well, “Wouldn’t surprise me. I saw a mechanism in the back that shows the drawer can empty itself, so maybe it goes into a fill up machine, or whatever, and puts it back?” 

I blink, nodding appreciatively, “That’s efficient.” 

“Or maybe Coran comes by and fills it up with his sweat slime from when he had the slipperies.” Lance sneers playfully aside to us, prompting an all around reaction of pure disgust. 

I curl my nose immediately and shutter, “Jesus  _ Christ,  _ Lance! It cost you _ zero dollars  _ to not say that.” 

Lance shoots me a wicked grin, “But your reactions are  _ priceless. _ ”

“Alright team,” Shiro calls our attention from the far wall, bringing us all to attention, “Here’s the plan: I’ve got the Gladiator lined up, so pair up and each group will face off with it one at a time. We’ll rotate through so everyone gets a few tries before we expand to bigger groups.” 

“I call Will!” Lance announces, draping an arm across my shoulders as his bayard slips back into his suit, turning to me with a flashy grin, “You just keep that big shield up between me and the robot and I’ll just shoot through it, blasting it apart with a big  _ kaboom! _ ” Lance makes a dramatic gesture with his hands before brushing off his hands as if to demonstrate a job well done, “Slice o’ pie.” 

I tilt my head, raising an eyebrow at him with an appreciative nod, “That’s… actually pretty smart.” 

Lance narrows his eyes at me with a dramatic scowl, “Why are you so surprised?! I  _ am  _ pretty smart!” 

“I’d like Keith!” Hunk glances to his left and right before he smiles shyly at Keith, tapping his fingertips together, “I mean, if you’re okay with that, ‘cause you’re pretty good with your sword and stuff, and can keep the robot far _ far _ away from me.” Hunk raises his gaze up at him hopefully, giving him full powered puppy eyes. 

Keith pauses, looking at Hunk with an open expression and a raised eyebrow before he shrugs nonchalantly, his hands on his hips, “Sure thing.” His voice is muted but surprised, and for a moment it makes my chest pang with a soft ache. It’s like watching a kid who always gets picked last during a team pick getting chosen first, and they’re shocked about it. 

“Nice! I’ll take Shiro any day of the week.” Pidge whistles enthusiastically at him where he stands by the holographic panel.

I swear I can see his slight smirk even from over here. “Alright then. Will, Lance, you’re up first.” 

I clap Lance on the back as we advance more into the middle of the deck, summoning my bayard and grasping it in both of my hands as Shiro continues with his typical instructor tone, “Remember your strengths and weaknesses. Will, don’t be afraid to take initiative; Lance, keep your head in the game, don’t focus on what anything but what you’re doing.” 

Lance scoffs just over my shoulder as he summons his bayard, resting it on his shoulder with a finger gun pointed at Shiro, “No problem, my head’s  _ one hundred percent  _ in the game.” 

There’s a dull, metallic thud behind me. I turn quickly on heel and grasp my bayard loosely in one hand extended as the familiar robot straightens, facing Lance and us only for a brief moment before it charges us with surprising speed. Immediately I activate the shield, shifting to fully block Lance with it as the robot approaches, shouting over my shoulder, “All you, Lance!” 

“On it!” He barks curtly, and a second later hot pulses of azure whizz by my shoulder and collide into the Gladiator’s shoulder, catching it off balance but not slowing it down a fraction. It’s upon me in a second, its long staff smacking down upon the top of the shield, nearly grazing my skull. I duck a bit and raise the shield higher, pushing outwards to knock the staff away but it disengaged before I could, rolling to the right and stabbing out with the blunt end. Behind me I hear Lance make a gagging sound as I round him, swinging the left end of my bayard about in an attempt to smack it in the back but it blocks the blow with relative ease. Lance snaps behind me as he continues to fire bolt after bolt at the Gladiator, “Ow! Hey, keep with it!” 

“I’m trying!” I skirt about him as the Gladiator attempts to round me again, but this time I’m able to keep with it in a wide shuffle, using both hands to strike my bayard on one end into the Gladiator’s right arm before knocking out the other end to lash at its left. It blocks the first blow but before it can twist to dodge the second Lance’s shots zero in on that shoulder, beating it back with three consecutive shots that start to melt the metal and cause the robot to stagger. I smash it in the side and knock it down onto its back as a final blue bolt shoots the Gladiator in the face. It slumps, the singular light in its face dying as the metal sizzles from the shot. 

I turn about a bit breathlessly and smirk at Lance, “Couldn’t have done that sooner?” 

Lance huffs at me indignantly, rubbing his right hip with a plaintive expression, “Hey, I would’ve it you didn’t let it hit me!” 

I tense a little, frowning, “I didn’t  _ let  _ it!” 

“Clear off,” Shiro commands, gesturing across the room, “Hunk, Keith, you’re on.” 

Lance and I retreat to the side to stand with Pidge as Hunk and Keith hit the floor, summoning their consecutive bayards in preparation for the next Gladiator to come.

It continues like this, each of us granted the chance to fight in pairs a couple rotations before we combine into two teams of three, and then in a couple group fights before Shiro insists upon ending with some sparring. 

“Lance, Hunk, work on some target practice. I’ll come over and check in with you guys in a minute.” The two depart, headed to that side of the room as Shiro pulls up holographic targets for them to shoot at on the holographic board. He turns to Pidge, Keith, and I as we stand, stretching and taking drinks, “Let’s work on some one on one’s, help get you comfortable in close quarters.”

A thought strikes me suddenly as I peer at him approaching us, my mouth starts running before I can think it through properly in my head, “Do you think that we’ll be fighting like this, Shiro? Like, head to head?” 

He pauses before us briefly, his eyebrows furrowed with a contemplative gleam in his eye. “Anything is possible. We’re pretty solid when it comes to weaponry and protection in our lions, but in situations like with Sendak we need to be able to defend ourselves without them.” 

A shiver runs up my spine at the mention. When I blink I see flashes of red, illuminating the walls of the bridge, and I have to rub my eyes and shake my head to clear my thoughts.  _ Now’s not the time. No need to get all dramatic about it.  _

Shiro pulls Pidge up first, working on her combat skills first. Keith and I stand together off to the side, watching them fight head to head, or rather… fist weapon to prosthetic and shield, which is a surprisingly formidable combination. Pidge’s clever trick of the blade shooting out is fumbling with Shiro’s abilities pretty significantly. I glance over at Keith out of the corner of my eye; he’s intently focused on the fight, his arms crossed with an otherwise blank expression. A part of me wonders if I should spark some sort of small talk, but I can’t really bring myself to do so.  _ Yeah, I don’t need to make anything else uncomfortable between us than things already are. At least, on my end. I don’t know, does he even think things are weird? Is he uncomfortable at all? Fucking hell, I can never get a read on him on damn near anything. I’ll just stay quiet, he doesn’t seem like a small talk kind of person anyway. _

“Did get some sleep last night?” I blink in shock out of my thoughts to hear his voice. I glance over at him with slow blinks as he looks right back at me with an even gaze, slightly out of the corner of his eye as he still watches the fight with acute interest, I barely realize he said anything at all.

“What? Oh. Uh. Yeah.” I answer quickly, looking down to minutely adjust the rest of my gauntlets around my wrist, “You?” 

“Was alright.” Keith hums, his gaze firm now on Shiro and Pidge’s fight as she ducks beneath Shiro’s shield back, getting a swift blow on the back of his knee.  _ Ooo, impressive.  _

“Things with Lance seem to have cleared up.” I look over at Keith again with surprise, but his expression is as unreadable as ever, watching Shiro and Pidge like a hawk.  _ Oh God, please don’t confront me about what Lance said now, I already promised myself to never talk about it again. _

“Yeah, we talked it out.” I murmur in response, clearing my throat a little as I glance over on that side of the room. Lance and Hunk are standing back to back, firing at fast moving holographic figures that whirl around them like sprinting Olympians.  _ They’re getting pretty good at this.  _ “It got kinda hairy there for a second…” I risk a glance to the side at Keith, he’s still firmly watching Pidge and Shiro. “Sorry that you got caught up in it.” 

Keith shrugs in response, otherwise not saying anything. I bite my lip and only briefly consider my words before I open my mouth, “I think it’ll be a little bit better from here on out.” 

“Let’s hope.” He answers curtly. I look him over briefly, searching his profile for any answers but all I see is his sharp jawline, his dark violet gaze like the depths of space flickering in the overhead light, the bare skin of his pulse just above the top of his flight suit- 

_ Will, oh my fucking God, can you NOT. Jesus  _ **_Christ._ **

We stand in silence for the rest of Shiro’s one on one with Pidge until he decrees it over, switching out with Keith after a brief water break. Pidge and I stand together, leaning on the wall by our cast aside helmets as Keith summons his sword in preparation to square off with Shiro. It’s then that I see the dark hilt protruding from the top of Keith’s left boot, wrapped in dark leather with a black pommel.  _ So he’s keeping his knife on him that way now, huh? Before he just put his belt on overtop his armor, but not anymore, now it’s hidden. Interesting. He wears it constantly… come to think of it, I think I’ve ever seen him without it. Must be habit, maybe, or it makes him feel more secure? Or he just really likes the aesthetic. That’s also possible. Maybe a combination of all of these. _

“You ever think about why Shiro’s arm is so powerful?” Pidge asks me suddenly in an undertone as Keith sweeps a leg under Shiro to try and knock him off balance, “Like, the Galra obviously made it for him… but why give it that charged glowing ability? Why give it the interfacing capabilities?” 

I blink at her in surprise, biting my lip with my arms crossed, “Honestly I haven’t thought about it.” 

Pidge watches him for a time, her eyebrows furrowed as Shiro knocks Keith on his back, ending the match. He holds out a hand to help him up, resetting their position for round two.

“Oh.” Pidge winces, and as I glance over at her she gives me a look before she looks back to Keith and Shiro’s match. She seems to be having an internal debate, her lips parting and then closing before finally she speaks with a surprisingly quiet and quick tone, “He was a gladiator, when he was Zarkon’s prisoner. Maybe they gave it to him to…” She trails off purposefully, her mouth clamming shut.

I curl my nose at the implication, my stomach turning over sickeningly, “... At best keep him in the ring. At worst, to make him a better fighter.” I shudder, feeling the hair on the back of my neck rising, “That’s so fucked up.”

“Yeah.” Pidge murmurs, her tone sounding regretful as she fiddles with the magnetism of her gauntlets. 

_ He mentioned back on Arus that he once fought a gladiator… What the fuck was his name, something like Myzax or whatever. That first ro-beast apparently fought the same way as he did.  _ _   
_ _ Come to think of it, I never really considered why: why make a monster that fights like a losing gladiator? Well, he didn’t lose up until he lost to Shiro, apparently, but… That does bring up the long standing question of how they make those things. I can’t even begin to question how they work, but somehow… they replicated a person in giant robot form, at least for that one. I can’t guess how that fucking works. Nonetheless, the Galra seem to be doing a lot of shit that’s unethical and absolutely, certainly fucked, but it does make me wonder specifically what sort of fucked up shit they did to get that made.  _

“It really messes me up how bad they must have hurt him sometimes.” Pidge whispers to me in admission, her voice surprisingly small. I look over at her with a gentle gaze as she keeps her eyes fixed on Shiro squaring off with Keith; she speaks again after a beat’s silence, “He’s so… different. Not just the scar, the hair, the arm… He’s quieter, you know? He doesn’t joke like, ever anymore, and he doesn’t really like to hang out with us… he just doesn’t act like how he would with my brother.” Her eyes drop down to her boots as she audibly swallows.

An immediate swarm of questions sweep upon me, mostly though it just makes my stomach clench. I settle on the first and most prevalent, watching her carefully while speaking in a voice just above a whisper, “You knew him? Back on Earth?”

Pidge shrugs a little, scrunching her nose to push her glasses up her nose, “Not a whole lot, but I did get to know him a little bit before they left for Kerberos. He was just so… goofy, I guess, he and Matt hit it off really well…” She shakes her head a little bit, letting out a sigh, “I don’t know. I’m just glad that he escaped.” Her voice is small and her tone is distracted. 

I glance over at her with furrowed eyebrows, immediate intuition honing in on her far away expression and antsy hands fiddling with her gloves. “Ulaz gave you some information about the Blade’s prisoner records, right? How’s that going?”  _ Have you been able to find out about your brother or dad’s location? _

Pidge sighs loudly, her shoulders sagging as her eyes close and her brows pinch, “ _ Slow.  _ There’s a lot that’s heavily decrypted. I’ve got a sequence sorting through it now, but it’s just taking  _ so  _ long, it’s  _ killing _ me.” 

I reach over and comfortingly rub her shoulder, which she seems to appreciate as she leans into the touch a little. I watch Shiro as he flicks his shield arm, knocking Keith’s sword out of his hand for the third time, and my thoughts fumble, honing on on Shiro’s features, specifically his scar.  _ He’s so different now, she says.  _

“You mentioned his scar. And his hair” I murmur quietly, my gaze unable to peel away from Shiro, “Has… has he not always had them like that?” 

Pidge blinks and looks over at me incredulously, the question seeming to bring her out of her headspace, “Oh, no, not at all. He didn’t have those when he left for Kerberos, so... they must’ve come from… you know, the Galra. Not sure if they dyed his hair white in the front though. It looks natural… but I can’t guess how that happened.” She raises an eyebrow at me in continued confusion before she suddenly takes a breath, “Oh, yeah, right. You probably never met him before he left, huh?” 

I shake my head, answering half consciously, “I was still on the east coast.” 

_ I swear, I thought Shiro’s always had that scar. I remember when we were on Earth and I was meeting all of these chucklefucks for the first time, I saw his scar and that was the thing that made me think he seemed so familiar. Maybe I just remembered it wrong? _

“Alright, take a breather.” Shiro says to Keith after a moment, breathing a little heavily as he comes over for some water. “Will, you’re up.” 

I raise an eyebrow at him with a concerned tilt of my head, “Sure you don’t need more of a breather, Shiro?”

He shakes his head confidently, his hands rested on his hips, “No, I’m alright.” He jerks his head towards the deck and steps away once he’s taken a deep drink, and I follow only after a moment’s hesitation, summoning my bayard. 

First round Shiro beats my ass handily. I take his advice to heart,  _ don’t be afraid to act,  _ but my first attack he brushes aside like a breeze and tosses me to the ground with, honestly, great form. Second round goes just about the same, which my skeleton  _ really  _ doesn’t appreciate. 

“Keep focused, Will.” Shiro says as he helps me up, “You’re doing great at taking initiative, but it’s okay to take a second to plan about what you’re gonna do. It’s a fine balance.” 

I nod with a deep exhale, gripping my bayard with both hands.  _ Okay. Take initiative, but think a little about it first. Fuck. Okay. I can do that.  _

I sweep Shiro’s form once we’re reset for round three.  _ He’s low to the ground, ready for a push or shoving assault, so I’ve gotta get him off balance.  _ I take a step forward, lashing out with the blunt edge of my bayard with a conjoining shove with both hands on the base. Shiro gives a single step but resets his stance immediately, using his shield to bat one side of my bayard back before his fist strikes out towards my stomach. I jump backward just out of the way, bringing my bayard up in front of me in defense as he smashes the middle with his shield. I step back, absorbing the impact before taking the handle with both hands and swinging it like a baseball bat to strike Shiro in the side now that his side is exposed. The blunt edge catches him just beneath his rib cage, he lets out a sharp breath as any indication of pain but the hit bounces off of his armor rather violently, twisting my torso a bit away from Shiro as it reverberates. Before I can recover Shiro takes full advantage, using his shield to bash my shoulder and knock me down. I twist and fall face first but before I can right myself Shiro grabs my wrist and pins it behind my back. 

It’s not a lot of pain, but the ache in my shoulders with my arm behind my back suddenly sends a full body shiver through me, and when I blink I see a dark room shrouded in crimson, I can feel hot breath on the back of my neck as a slithering voice hisses,  _ “You have no claws, little lion.”  _

The pressure alleviates as Shiro grabs the back of my armor and puts me back on my feet, patting me on the shoulder, and only then do I realize he’s speaking to me, “... better, but try to avoid over-committing to one attack.”  _ Do you think this is true pain, little lion? Let’s see how your sense of humor fares when I’m done ripping the information out of your broken body. _

Mutely I nod, but a dark lump has formed in my throat as ice seems to seep into my veins, I can’t seem to shake the hideous glimmer of a golden eye and a red lens from the edges of my mind. 

Shiro’s hand persists on my shoulder, I see his face round me so I rise to meet his gaze mostly on muscle memory. He frowns a little, his hand squeezing my shoulder in I think what he means to be a comforting manner, “You okay?” 

I blink for a few seconds as I take a mental cloth and wipe my thoughts clean, afterwards I truly look at Shiro and nod more firmly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Good hit.” 

Shiro watches me for a moment, his gaze searching mine before he finally releases me, turning towards the others over my shoulder and calling, “Alright, I think that’s enough for today.” 

I hear Hunk gasp in excitement as Shiro disengages, “Oh, is it dinner? Thank crow, I’m  _ starving! _ ”

“You’re always starving.” Lance huffs. I bend over where my bayard fell and pick it up, feeling like my limbs are dragging through syrup, all I can do is focus on one action at a time. I shake out my shoulders a bit to rid myself of the feeling, letting my bayard slip back into my suit as the others voices seem to drown into a background white noise. I turn back around and grab my water bottle and take a drink. 

“Will, you coming?” Pidge calls. I turn and see that everyone’s walking down the hall already, Pidge is walking backwards as she looks at me with a questioning tilt of her head, like a puppy.

“I’ll get some food later, I think I’m gonna keep training some more.” I answer, waving her off dismissively, “Catch you tonight.” 

Her lips pinch with slight disbelief but I turn away before I can see any more, heading over to the fall wall to the holographic panel.  _ Melee Training. One on One. Gladiator. Training Level One. Verbal Queues.  _

“Commence training.” I call into the open air once the settings are in, summoning my bayard in preparation. 

_ I need to shake this. I can’t be seizing up like this in a fight. Come on, focus, Will.  _

The Gladiator falls, and we lock gazes only for a moment before the fight is on. 

… 

“Commence training level five!” I call into the air after I’ve taken another water break, summoning my bayard forth with a preparatory breath. My head has cleared, significantly, it’s just me, a violent robot, and my bayard.  _ I’m finding that it’s surprisingly therapeutic to beat the shit out of something. Can’t overthink when I’m trying to avoid getting my ass handed to me. _

The Gladiator falls to the floor with its staff in hand, and slowly it turns to me with a brief scan of the room. I don’t hesitate, I sprint forward and grasp both ends of my bayard, engaging the shield and full body slamming the thing. It tries to dodge out of the way but I still clip it in the side, sending it staggering briefly before it moves to strike me square between my shoulders in return. I twist and raise my bayard in front of me to block it, advancing a step to attack with one end of the bayard before lashing out with the other to catch it off balance. It blocks both strikes with ease, smashing the middle of its lance against mine and pushing me back in surprise. I stagger but raise my hands just in time as its polearm descends to smack my skull, but as I brush the weapon aside before I can attack a sudden crackle erupts from the robot’s chest, a long, sharpened red blade protruding from its chest. I blink as it crumples to the floor, looking up to spot the owner’s bayard returning to their suit. 

“Mind if I join you?” Keith asks, his voice is husky and his expression is unreadable. Naturally my first reaction is  _ oh hell yeah you can.  _

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I say instead with the absolute  _ elegance  _ and  _ grace _ that I lack, rubbing the back of my neck as I glance over at the holographic panel, “I was gonna go to level six after this, but now that kinda feels like cheating.” 

Keith smirks roguishly, sending immediate lightning down to my fingertips as he walks over to the panel, “Let’s do it again then. For real, this time.” 

I smile a little to myself in response, my chest warming underneath my armor to the point that I can’t help but speak without thought, “Ah, just like back on Arus. Remember,  _ back in the old days? _ ” I muse, raising a cocky eyebrow at him as he turns back towards the middle with the setting altered. 

Keith meets my gaze and offers a half smile that’s the emotional equivalent of Lance’s bayard shooting me in the chest. “Yeah. Good times.” 

“Good times.” I echo, chewing on my lip momentarily before I raise my head, “Commence training level five!” 

… 

Just like back on Arus, Keith and I don’t speak much except to call warnings while we train, and honestly it settles my nerves, in almost all respects. It just feels… natural, I guess. I keep finding myself getting stressed when I’m with him sometimes just because I’m constantly gay panicking, but there’s just simply no time for that when you’re fighting. It’s… really nice. It reminds me that what draws me to Keith, not romantically but just him as a person, is how quiet he is. It’s not that I dislike noisy people or anything, but I’ve found there are very few people in this world who don’t feel the need to communicate verbally and Keith is one of them. It’s… kinda refreshing for us to be quiet without talking and it not being awkward. Downside is that it does make it more difficult for me to read exactly what it is that he’s thinking or feeling at any given point. Though that’s something that I think I’m getting much better at with the others, especially Hunk and Pidge. I think it may have something to do with our connection with the stones, but that’s honestly just far reaching, it makes much more sense in that we’ve been hanging out constantly for two weeks. 

Eventually, after fighting several levels of the training Gladiator I let my lance return to my suit, letting out a loud breath in relief as I head over to the wall, “I think that’s just about it for me. Heading to bed soon?”

I pick up my water bottle and glance over a Keith to see him shrugging, “Think I might train a little longer. But soon.” 

“You know, there is such a thing as training too much.” I say as I slip my bottle back in the drawer hidden in the wall. I turn to Keith as he stands with one of his hands on his waist, his eyebrow raised at me with a look that I guess means  _ yeah, and? _ “Not that I think you need me to tell you what to do or anything because I know you won’t listen. Err, not that you won’t listen, but you haven’t any reason to listen to me ‘cause I’m not like in charge of you or anything-” I stumble over my words so badly that I simply have to just shake my head with a loud exhale through my nose to recollect myself, “You know what I mean. You know yourself best.” I turn towards the door, waving a hand over my shoulder, “See you tomorrow!” 

“Night.” He replies as I make my way back towards my room, soon after the sound of clanking metal emerging from the opened doors. 

When I turn onto the hallway where our rooms, Pidge and Lance are hovering in the hallway, speaking loudly enough that I can hear their words as I approach. 

_ “-wasn’t I invited?!”  _

Pidge is standing just outside of my room with a hand hovering over the touchpad as she gestures to the doorway with her other hand, “Well, if you wanna join, then please!” She’s in her pajamas already with her hoodie draped over her chest like a blanket in itself.

“Well maybe I don’t want to!” Lance huffs indignantly, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s in his pajamas, too, just like Hunk’s but sky blue with a matching robe on his shoulders and little slippers with the Blue Lion’s face on the toe, which are absolutely  _ adorable  _ it wrecks me to see them. He looks up at me once I’m close enough to them and makes a face much like indignation before he calls, “Why didn’t you tell me you guys have been having a slumber party?” 

I blink in surprise and glance over at Pidge, who merely returns my gaze evenly in a manner that leads me to believe that she’s basically handing the conversation over to me. I let out a bare sigh as I turn back to Lance, “It’s not a party, Lance.” 

“Well it looks like it! Hunk even brought his lights!” He replies sharply, his arms shifting to cross tighter over his chest. 

_ Damnit, this is gonna undo the whole damn thing that I worked yesterday to help him with. I don’t want him to be upset and think that we’re purposefully excluding him because that isn’t it at all! This is just because of the potential test dreams! But he doesn’t know that…  _

_ But maybe he should.  _

I return my gaze to Pidge’s with an unspoken question, cocking an eyebrow at her.  _ Can we tell him?  _

Pidge flickers her gaze to me and then to Lance before she taps on the door to open it, “Why don’t you join us and find out?” 

“Well, I already have plans with me, my pillow, and my facemask tonight!” Lance retorts with the same indignant expression, turning towards his room with a purposeful, pissed stride.  _ Fuck! _

“Lance, wait!” I rush after him but fortunately he pauses just at his door, turning back to look at me with a suspicious raise in his eyebrow. I look over at him and then at my doorway, thinking carefully about what I’m going to say before I open my mouth, “I really want you here, but it’s not really for me to… talk about. Please, at least come in for a minute and let us explain what exactly we’re doing.” Lance’s gaze falls off to the side with a slight huff. I reach out a hand and touch his arm, returning his gaze to mine, “Please?” 

He glances between me and my bedroom door where Pidge stands poised before he lets out a breath, “ _ Okay,  _ I  _ guess _ .” I smile at him and tug on his shirt briefly as I head back towards my room, heading inside just after Pidge sees us coming and enters just before. 

Hunk’s already laying on his back in his pajamas, one leg crossed over the other with his arms behind his head on his side of the mega bed. He looks up when we enter before sitting up, crossing his legs under him with a beaming grin, “Hey Lance! We’re glad you’re here.” 

“Yeah, I mean, I do tend to  _ light up  _ the room.” He gestures briefly to one of the overhead lights with a cocked eyebrow at us and a trademark smirk before he balks, pointing at the far wall with an indignant cry, “ _ What-the-where! Where  _ did you get those?! Why are they on the wall?!” __

I look over at the Pidge’s selfies of him chained to the tree holographically pinned to my wall and immediately flash back a smirk, “Oh come on, you really think I wouldn’t have kept them?”

Lance narrows his eyes at me with an indignant huff as Pidge moves to sit next to Hunk, getting comfortably under the blankets in the middle of the room. Lance flickers his gaze from me to the pictures before I see him visibly put the thoughts on it aside as he huffs, “We’re coming back to that!” He lets out a breath and sits on the end of the ultrabed, resting his chin in his hand, “So, what’s with all the secrecy? You guys a rock cult now?” 

Pidge glances up at me with a raised eyebrow like she’s asking for permission. I shrug at her and step over the bed, gesturing to the dresser, “Y’all mind if I change right here? Promise I won’t flash anyone, but I’m not sleeping in my suit again.” 

“Go ahead.” Hunk says with a dismissive wave, both Lance and Pidge nod with expressions that don’t scream  _ please no, don’t do that dear god  _ so I peel off my armor one piece at a time as Pidge turns and speaks directly to Lance, “So… Do you remember how when we met Will on Earth he talked about how he had these dreams?”

Lance glances over at me as I tug my gauntlets off and then set the chestplate off to the side next to my guitar, “Uh, yeah. You said it was something like your lion showing you visions, or whatever. Crazy stuff.” 

I snicker a little under my breath, facing them as I undo the top of my suit and tug it down to my waist, “Yeah. I’ve figured it out though that they weren’t just dreams; they were tests. The White Lion was testing me to see if I was a worthy enough paladin.” 

“Still crazy.” Lance replies with a less guarded tone, glancing over at Pidge, “What’s that got to do with anything? No offense.” He says dismissively towards me as I step out of my boots. 

“Well…” Pidge bites her lip, worming her hands into the hem of her hoodie, “Yesterday I kind of had one just like it.” 

“And I almost did.” Hunk says with a hand raised, before he retracts it and smiles sheepishly, “Almost being the key word here. It didn’t get to the scary,  _ test  _ part yet, I suppose, but it started out just like it.” 

Lance blinks incredulously at the pair, scrunching his nose in confusion, “Wait a minute, what? Back up, how do you know it was like Will’s?” 

“They all start the same.” I answer, taking off my shirt with the top of my flight suit bundled around my waist, “Our lions appear to us in some kind of like… metaphysical form.” 

“Yeah,” Hunk adds, nodding seriously at Lance, “Like, literal lions, except they all match the colors of our lions. Like, mine’s a yellow lion, just like you’d see at a zoo except a  _ brighter  _ yellow, I guess to make it more obvious or something, but, you know…” 

Lance glances between the two of us a bit incredulously, sitting back with his hands propping him up, “Oooookay. So what, your lions show up in a dream? Does sleeping all together lead to a group dream, or something?” 

I blink at him with wide eyes and immediately shudder, kicking out of my flight suit as I tug on some white shirt in my drawer, “Oh  _ God  _ I hope not.” 

Pidge quickly shakes her head, fixing her gaze on Lance, “No, it’s like… It’s what happens  _ after  _ our lions appear.” She swallows audibly and drops her head, looking down at her hands wound up in her hoodie pocket. Once dressed I slip down quietly between her and Lance, completing our little circle on our conjoining beds in the soft lit room, and once all’s still for a few seconds Pidge speaks again, “Our lions… well, Will and mine, at least, we’re not sure with Hunk’s yet… they kind of  _ test  _ us. For something, I don’t know what, but the stuff that happens is…” 

“Terrifying.” Hunk finishes for her, crossing his legs to mirror Lance, “Horrible. Nightmare fueled, frightening-”

“I think he gets it.” I murmur in response, propping one leg up and hugging my knee to my chest as I watch both Pidge and Lance, back and forth. Lance has visibly quelled, I think because he’s realized the seriousness of the moment based on Pidge’s demeanor which has grown shrouded, her eyes are glued to the work of her hands in her hoodie hem. 

“So we decided to all sleep together in the same room.” She says finally, looking up at Lance, “Just in case one of those dreams were to happen… we wouldn’t be alone when we woke up.” 

The room is quiet for a long time. I feel something burn in the back of my throat, frustration, righteous anger, boiling and festering in the middle of my ribcage as I stare down at my blanket beneath me. “I had to deal with it alone back on Earth.” I murmur in a voice that I wish weren’t so hollow, threading my fingers through a portion of the comforter, “It was… hard. I don’t want you guys to have to be alone either, not if I could help it.” 

“Huh.” Lance murmurs after a moment of silence, flickering his gaze between Pidge and I for a moment before he releases a half hearted smirk, “Well, kinda makes me glad that I don’t have a magic rock now, at least.” 

Pidge scoffs a little with a small grin, “Hah, yeah. Fuck the magic rocks.” 

I don’t know what it is about that phrase that gets me but it makes me let out a loud, immediate laugh, I’m tossing my head back with a clap before I point at her enthusiastically as I echo in between giggles, “Oh  _ yeah! FUCK  _ the magic rocks!” 

“So wait a second, Hunk,” Lance turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow, “You said you  _ almost _ had a dream like that?” 

“Oh yeah,” Hunk nods quickly at him, running a hand through his hair which is  _ so weird  _ to see not half hidden by the orange ribbon he always wears, “I only got the first bit with my lion showing up, but I was just taking a nap; Shiro woke me up before any of the scary stuff started, and I wouldn’t have said anything but then Pidge told me about her dream and I uh… Yeah.” 

Pidge gently taps Lance’s shoulder offhandedly, suddenly smiling rather brightly, “But on the bright side, none of us had any bad dreams since so maybe it’s nothing, we’ll see tonight. It’ll be so much more fun with you here now! You know, snoring and keeping us up all night will be sure to keep the test dreams away.”

Lance gasps indignantly and shoves her playfully onto her back, “ _ Hey!  _ I  _ don’t _ snore!” 

“Oh you  _ so  _ do.” Pidge counters, turning onto her side to look up at Hunk, “Tell him!” 

Hunk sucks in breath with his hands out to the side with a sheepish look,  _ “Well…”  _

“You guys suck!” Lance grumbles, reaching behind me to brandish a pillow to hit Pidge with. I quickly roll backwards to escape right as all hell breaks loose, pillows flying and smacking into one another with shrieks and cries of indignation, but even then I can’t truly escape the crossfire and blowback from pillows that barely hit their target. 

“Hey, watch it!” I cry but to no avail, getting smacked by Pidge as she misses Lance’s face. 

Hunk lets out a rallying cry, lifting a pillow over his head with a powerful bellow,  _ “Pillow fight!!”  _

Chaos is unleashed. Pillows are flying, blankets getting caught up in the mix as we sling it at each other and across the room until we’re left with all of the materials strewn across the megabed and each of us collapsed on some part of it, wheezing in laughter. 

“I totally won.” Lance mutters breathlessly, granting him a final  _ smack  _ of a pillow straight to the face from Pidge. 

I let out a deep breath, snagging one of the stray blankets to curl up with on top of what I think was Hunk’s pillow which has ended up on my side of the bed. “Alright,” I say challengingly, “If anyone hits me with a pillow while I’m sleeping, you will be invoking the absolute  _ wrath of God  _ upon you.”

Immediately three pillows sail across the room and strike me in three different locations. 

I grumble under my breath as I grab all three of them, hoarding them to my chest, “Jokes on you,  _ they’re all mine now. _ ” 

“Hey! Gimme one!” Lance’s hand grapples my shoulder and attempts to pull me back but I push against it, curling around the pillows jealously with a playful hiss,  _ “Mine!” _

A sudden hand rises from the top and snatches one of the exterior pillows, much to my dismay as Pidge rolls over with a triumphant cackle. Lance’s hand tugs more insistently, squirming past my arm and latching onto a pillow and before long I can’t hold onto it anymore, so I simply let it slide before tossing the final one over my shoulder, followed by Hunk letting out a manly squeak. 

“Ha. Totally won.” Lance mumbles again as he fights down a yawn, I feel him press against my back as he wedges himself more firmly between Pidge and I. I roll closer to the wall to give him some more space as I count the minutes with my eyes closed. It can’t have been more than ten when all three of them are out, snoring and breathing deeply like they weren’t literally just beating the shit out of each other with pillows. 

_ Damn, that’s insane. Maybe that is what normal sleep is like for normal people. _

I toss and turn a little, each side and each angle just not quite right until I find a good position, one arm splayed above me and my leg extended fully below me with my pillow tucked in between my head and my arm. Even then I find my thoughts continue to rage a mile a minute like I didn’t have a second of the day to think until now. 

_ I’m glad that we got Lance to join us. It’s really important to me that he feels involved, and I think the good  _ _ tête-à-tête _ _ and pillow fight really solidified that. Although, this does beg the question of whether we should make this a regular thing. Should we invite the others? I’m sure Shiro would say no, I can’t really imagine him sleeping with a bunch of teenagers. Allura would be excited, maybe, I’m not sure, Lance certainly would be… God,  _ **_Coran._ ** _ That would be so fucking weird. I don’t even wanna think about sleeping in the same room as Keith; that would of course be the one night that my subconscious would betray me and give me one of those violently gay dreams, because my fucking head just loves to do that.  _

_ Come to think of it, my dreams are truly so fickle. Sometimes I remember them clearly, detail specific and distinct, but other times I only remember that it happened but nothing else. My test dreams were nothing like that; I’d remember how I felt and some specific moments but nothing really beyond that, but some of these dreams are just strange. I guess they’re  _ **_normal_ ** _ dreams, though, but I can’t really ever know, can I? How would I know how other people dream? I still think it’s wild that some people go through their whole lives without dreaming, I can’t even imagine that. Every night you just close your eyes, then wake up again, rested a couple hours later… That’s just… wow. What the fuck. How did I get the short end of the straw?  _

_ But then again, my dreams aren’t really all that bad. Actually, sometimes they really are, I could go without some of the ones that I’ve had since the test dreams stopped happening, but others have been… different. I’d like a dream that was filled with something happy, a joy filled memory or something like that, but most of mine have somehow had some twist of the negative shit that’s happened to me over the years, even over these weeks, to try and hurt me. I don’t remember ever having a dream that I woke up from and wished I had gone back to sleep. Actually, except once, but that was a  _ **_very_ ** _ gay dream and I should  _ **_not_ ** _ have wanted that…  _

_ I’m hoping that these gay feelings for Keith will diminish over time. Now that it’s kind of all out on the table, we both know about it and we’re pretty much on the same page in terms of expectations for it… should be easy. Except, are we on the same page? I have no fucking clue, to be honest. I thought we were, just before we went to Olkarion, I remember distinctly I asked him in a roundabout-ish way if he felt the same about me and he said no. Well, he actually said “I don’t know” but that’s basically the same thing, and frankly I thought that was that, end of story, except it wasn’t because then  _ **_Olkarion_ ** _ and then he fucked off with Allura and left us all terrified and pissed - well, me terrified and pissed - and both times there was some unspoken tension where that question kind of hung in the air. “What are we?” But there’s really no way to have that conversation.  _ **_Especially_ ** _ if he doesn’t remember Olkarion, which I suspect he doesn’t. If he did, I feel like he would be acting differently around me, even though he’s hard to read he can’t hide something like that, right? And I haven’t noticed a single change.  _

_ Or… he is pretty good at hiding his emotions like that, though, and I’ve been pretty wrong before when it comes to him and his fucking feelings. I don’t think I would’ve known if that shit hadn’t happened when I walked out of the healing pod and he felt the need to come and apologize to me. Well, actually… I think I did know, somewhere, that Keith liked me back. When Lance pointed it out to me made me confront it and figure it out, “What are you going to do about it.” Answer is nothing, still is nothing, and will continue to be nothing, because being gay should not be a priority when we’re in the middle of a war and may face certain death at some point in the future.  _

_ And who knows how things will change after, if by some miracle we all make it out in one piece with the empire dismantled. How I feel, how he feels, that’ll definitely morph when we don’t spend damn near every waking moment with one another, and that’s something to keep in mind, right? Jesus Christ. Can I ever go one day without thinking and thinking and overthinking and thinking about my fucking feelings for Keith? Why can’t I think about something else? Like… oh. Guess I really don’t wanna think about the war. Or home. Or memories of home, because those things make me sad and reminiscent and all. Gotta focus on the present… so maybe Keith is kind of the best thing for me to think about, because it’s not about the impending doom of battle or the terrifying unknown that is how to stop the grabbing hands of a thousand year old power hungry monster…  _

_ Yeah. Gay thoughts are definitely preferable, come to think of it.  _

_ I should get to know him better. I still don’t know all that much about him. Actually… I don’t know a whole lot about most of the others from their time before the Garrison. I know Keith went to the Garrison, met Shiro, then Shiro ultra bonds with him because Shiro saw his potential and pushed him to be better, or something like that, before he somehow left the Garrison after Shiro was captured on Kerberos. Shiro, I have no idea what he did before he worked at the Garrison, same with Pidge, Hunk, and Lance. I know Lance is from Cuba and he went to become a fighter pilot but little else, Hunk got in to be a space engineer because  _ **_somehow_ ** _ that’s easier to do than be a world class chef… You know what, I think I may know Hunk as a person better than anyone else on the ship, at least in terms of personal history. Damn. That’s fucking wild. Pidge, Pidge Pidge Pidge, I feel like I still don’t know her all that well. I know about her drive to find her brother and her dad - Matt and Dr. Sam Holt, I remember now - and I know she went to the Garrison for more answers after she got thrown out hacking their computers, which already in it of itself is insane to think about because imagine the firewalls alone… But before that? No idea. I need to make a better effort to do that.  _

_ Tomorrow? Yeah. Tomorrow. _

…

I wake up to a loud gasp followed by a hiccuping sob, ripping me from my sleep like a bandaid torn off of a still healing wound. I turn over slowly and sit up and when I look over I see nothing physically amiss save for the shaking of Hunk’s shoulders. He’s facing away from me, towards the wall.  _ No. Oh no. _

I carefully maneuver myself over Pidge and past Lance so as to not wake them, it’s difficult to do and it takes time but once I’m resting behind Hunk I rest a hand his shoulder, sitting slightly in between him and a sleeping Pidge, “Hey, you okay?”

He sniffles before he sits up, turning about to look at me with a sharp exhale, “What? Yeah. Fine.” He says in a manner that absolutely  _ screams  _ ‘not fine’.  His tears are streaming down his cheeks despite how quickly he wipes them away on his orange sleeve before he buries his face into his hands, taking forcefully slowed breaths. “No, really,” He reaffirms, his breath shaky but his voice a bare whisper, “I’m really fine.” His voice is steady, but he looks absolutely terrified; his eyes are wide and his shoulders are shaking, he looks like he’s ready to bolt like a terrified horse at any given second. 

“And I’m really the President.” I murmur without much humor in my voice, reaching out and rubbing his shoulder gently with my hand while fixing him with a firm, calming gaze.

Hunk rises his head from his hands with a sniffle before he whispers, “Okay, maybe I’m not really fine.” 

Pidge beside me stirs, taking a short breath as an indication of sleepiness before she suddenly sits up, flurrying for her glasses as she rolls over to face us, “Hunk!” She whispers frantically, her eyes are now flown wide awake, “Oh no, did you have a dream? Are you okay?” 

Hunk lets out a short breath, holding his head in his hands as he grumbles with an embarrassed tone, “Man, I didn’t mean to wake you guys up, I’m so-” 

“Shut up, you have nothing to be sorry for.” I state firmly, shifting a little before reaching out and hugging him tightly. He hugs me back fairly instantaneously, and although it’s a bit of an awkward position I don’t let go until he does first. My heart aches, it aches so much it almost hurts. Hunk is the sweetest human being I’ve ever met, he’s selfless and kind and cares so much about everyone and to see him sobbing with chocolate eyes wet with tears makes me want to hug him tightly and rip out the throats of those who would cause this harm.  _ Well, time for me to go beat the shit out of the Yellow Lion. _

Hunk sits back a little, holding the edge of the blanket up to his chin as he swallows and turns to look from me to Pidge and back again, “Is it…  _ always  _ that bad for you guys?” 

“What did you dream about?” Pidge asks immediately, and although her tone is a whisper it’s stark and demanding. Behind me, I hear a sleepy voice groggily mutter, “What’s all the fuss about?” 

“Aww man, now I’ve woken Lance!” Hunk dismays with a genuinely sad pout, wiping his eyes far more fiercely now than before, “Sorry man, just go back to-” 

_ “Hunk.”  _ He pulls his gaze back to me, sniffling a little as I grab his hand, “Don’t be sorry. This is what we’re all here sleeping on my floor for.” 

Lance shifts behind me until I feel him sitting just by my shoulder, his breath ruffles the hem of my shirt as he looks beyond me to Hunk, his voice is surprisingly gentle and warm, “Hey man, what’s going on?” 

Hunk furrows his eyebrows but now it seems like his initial sadness has faded, he’s stopped crying and his breath is somewhat normal but he still looks shaken, like a small child after being left behind in a funeral parlor. Lance sits down on his other side until we’ve made a closed circle around Hunk; it takes him a moment to meet our gazes and collect himself, but before long he speaks in a quiet register, no longer a whisper since we’re all awake but it’s still soft nonetheless, “It was just like it started yesterday… I was on this big rocky field, when all of a sudden a gold lion came over from behind a boulder and just… looked at me. I asked him, like, ‘Oh, hey, didn’t see you there, is this one of those scary tests things that you guys have been doing?’ but before I could really do anything else he looked down at a crevice and I just kinda knew that I also had to look at the hole in the ground, it was so weird-” Hunk fumbles for words, intermixed between half attempts at jokes and description, but as he progresses he gets quieter, more precise, “There was all this black smoke, and then suddenly I was sitting, looking out at this…  _ horrible  _ thing, like a really really really sad aftermath of a horror movie.” Hunk swallows briefly, moving his hands behind his head but then stops when his hands meet his hair, instead letting them fall to his lap,  _ I wonder if he’s looking for his ribbon, _ “There were just these… so many…  _ bodies _ . Dead people, aliens, humans, animals, just… as far as I could see.” Hunk looks off at an unseen horizon, his large jaw is taut as he plows on with a softer edge in his voice, “Then I turned around and you guys were there, and you were asking me “Does it look bad, Hunk?” And then I realized that you guys couldn’t see the field and…” Hunk shakes his head as if he could shake the memory like a dog shakes its coat of water before he speaks again with trembling breath, “I didn’t know what to say. It was just so… bad. Like, horrifyingly bad. How am I supposed to tell you about how bad it is when  _ I’m  _ not even sure how to say how bad it is? But you just kept asking, and asking, and I didn’t know what to say, and just…”

We sit together in a dark, sullen silence for what feels like several minutes. Hunk’s recollected himself fully, at least visually, but he stares at his hands like they were covered in blood, wide and a little terrified. 

“It wasn’t real, Hunk.” Pidge murmurs softly, shifting to sit with her legs criss crossed beneath her.

“I know!” Hunk huffs, shaking his head a little like there’s a fly buzzing by his ear, “It’s just… I don’t know, it felt so real. And now that I’m awake I’m wondering… Are our lions doing this to us because they think we’ll need to do this? Like, will I ever have to do that?” Hunk turns to look at each of us with a wide eyed look, swallowing on a lump in his throat, “Maybe not  _ this _ specifically, but…” 

I chew on my lip for a moment before I answer, “I don’t think it’s the specific situation that matters so much as what your lion is trying to glean from you.” I don’t elaborate, purposefully so; I feel Lance’s inquisitive look beside me as he shifts to make a more complete semi circle around Hunk but I keep my eyes level completely on Hunk’s dark eyed expression, “Did anything else happen?” 

Hunk furrows his eyebrows, chewing on the inside of his cheek, “... There was this other moment where we were floating in space. Like, all of us together, in our suits, in the middle of space, nothing around us at all and you were all fighting. You know, how Lance and Keith fight but worse because it was  _ all  _ of you, even Shiro!” Hunk shakes his head, letting out a sigh, “I didn’t realize it ‘til just now, but… I think it was because you all were just really scared. I’d never seen any of you act like that before, but it wasn’t… weird, like it wasn’t you, because it  _ was  _ you, you know? You were just acting in a way I’d never seen before, and I think what it was was that you were all just really  _ really  _ scared.” 

I furrow my eyebrows at this, my breath catching in my throat at the mere thought.  _ Floating through space? Nothing but each other? That’s so fucking terrifying. Makes perfect sense to me that we’d be scared shitless.  _

“So what happened?” Pidge asks, raising an eyebrow at Hunk while leaning closer to him and pushing up her glasses; she still looks half asleep, she’s blinking twice as slow as a normal person. 

Hunk lets out a sigh and shakes his head, “I kept yelling at you guys to stop it, but none of you were listening to me. Then… One by one each of you turned and went in a different direction and said that you wouldn’t come back.” Hunk takes a deep breath before he continues, like he’s steeling himself, “I didn’t know what to do, I went after Shiro because I thought if I could get  _ Shiro  _ to stay then I could get everyone else to stay but I didn’t say the right things, I kept messing up and he just got angry…” Hunk looks down at the ground, his eyebrows drawn together in such a dejected look it makes my heart ache. 

Lance glances over at me and when I feel his gaze I look back at him as he’s opening his mouth, but when he sees me looking he pauses and shuts it again, his blue eyes flickering like subdued, moonlit ponds that fall to Hunk’s hands as they nervously tug on the fabric of his pajama pants.

“Was there anything else?” I ask quietly, fixing Hunk with all of my attention and closely inspecting his features for any emotional change. He mutely shakes his head, his shoulders curled inwards towards himself and his head hung like a sad teddy bear. 

“Oh, Hunk!” Pidge lunges forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly as she states firmly, “Don’t worry about it, buddy, we’re here now. And I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Me either!” Lance declares with matched resolution, shuffling closer to hug Hunk as well with a tight squeeze that makes Hunk squeak a little in a manner that almost makes me laugh.

“None of us are, and none of us will.” I murmur, smiling softly at Hunk, “Those dreams are hard, but you’re okay now. That speaks to your inner strength.”

Hunk starts sniffling all over again, shifting so he can wrap a thick arm around Pidge and Lance in turn as he manages a rather subdued but still genuine smile, “Thanks, guys. This would’ve really sucked if I was alone.” 

“Get in here!” Pidge grumbles, extending an arm out towards me with a  _ gimme  _ grab with her hand. I smile and comply, scuffling closer to join in on the group hug. We sit in mutual warmth for several minutes yet despite it I can’t seem to thaw the chill that’s settled in my chest.  _ What could his dreams be trying to test him for? What trait is the Yellow lion screening for? Or is it screening for anything at all? It would seem a little late for that, but you never know. What is the purpose for these dreams, what is it  _ **_for_ ** _? How can I help make sure that this doesn’t happen to either of them again? _

We’re all disturbed when Hunk suddenly lets out a startling snore, causing us all to release him at once. He flails a little with a spooked mumble before he shakes his head, looking at each of us with wide eyes before he smiles shyly, “What? It was  _ warm  _ and  _ comfy _ .” 

“Alright, I’m going back to bed.” Lance yawns as he collapses back in his place in the cuddle pile, getting wrapped up in the copious amounts of blankets collected with a catlike nuzzle. 

“Seconded.” Pidge groans, but before she fully disengages she fixes Hunk with a stern look, “Are you gonna be okay, though?”

Hunk nods sleepily, his eyes are half open, “Yeah, I think so. I feel a lot better now, actually…” His words are interrupted with a small yawn. 

I smile a little in relief and prod him with my foot as I get back onto my side of the bed, “Wake us up if you have another, alright?” I double poke Pidge as I pull up the blankets around me, “That goes for you, too.” 

Pidge smacks at my hands in a disoriented fashion, moaning, “ _ Okay _ , okay, Mr. Bossy.” 

I shake my head and lay back down, and I swear after no more than five minutes the entire room’s silent save for the sleepy breaths and intermittent snores of the others.  _ That’s so fucking unfair.  _

Fortunately, my exhaustion catches up to me, and after I’ve listened to their deep breathing for a few minute I too fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> I swear it's so hard to make filler days and also writing the filler because WOW it'd be so much easier to just be like *three days go by* but no, there's important shit going on and we all know that lazy skip is what hurt Voltron bad (not as bad as some things, but it's nonetheless a big aspect) so here we go. Team Bonding! I meant to have all of this be in one or two chapters but now it's looking to be over the course of 5 like, damn, you can say it: /fucking chill/  
> Only 4 more days left... (maybe). Could be 3... could be 5... Depends on when Coran finishes up fixing the teludav... Or how fast the Castle flies. Guess we'll see!  
> **


	5. Spiraling Theories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With so many questions remaining, about the Lions' stones, about the Galra, about quintessence, the team need help keeping it all straight, and answers are getting harder and harder to come by. The best thing they've got is to think, hard, with the information they have available to them. Lucky for them that Will is an expert in overthinking.  
> \---  
> **Warning: violence, implied faux animal abuse (it'll make sense when it comes I promise), cannibalism/getting eaten alive (not terribly graphic), near the end of the chapter while the palagang's in the Green Lion's hanger.**

_I’m sitting on the front steps of the porch of my house. The front lawn slopes downward, long and vibrantly green with clusters of trees sprouting tall and high, making the sunlight shining down on the grass dappled with gold. Dark evergreens and vibrant sycamores surround us in a large circle and in the distance is the vague outline of the Blue Ridge mountains, lying just overtop the trees as our amiable, giant neighbor. It always feels like I’m on top of the world here, I can just see the tops of the emerald trees down the slope from my home on the hill in the middle of the forest._

_“That’s what makes you special, you know.” I raise an eyebrow and look over my shoulder and see Damien sitting in an adirondack chair with his elbows on his knees, his eyes are as blue as the sky as they look at me with care and affection, “You can do anything.”_

_I scoff softly to myself and turn to face forward again, looking out over the trees, “Yeah, sure, but with mixed results. I still can’t fly worth a Tubman.”_

_“Not everything is about technical skill.” Damien responds. I hear the wood of the chair creak and a hand rests on my shoulder as he sits beside me, his knee gently touching mine. I can feel his gaze peering at the side of my face but I find that I can’t turn to look at him, my eyes are enraptured by the sunlight dancing along the leaves. “But I mean it, Will. You know how make something out of nothing, you have this power to create and destroy at your fingertips… you just have to learn how to use it.”_

_I raise an eyebrow and again as I try to look over at Damien I find that my head simply won’t, it’s locked looking straight forward. “What’re you talking about?”_

_“You can do it with your music.” Damien murmurs, his voice is gentle and sweet as he reaches out to my and brushes that one lock of hair that refuses to stay out of my face behind my ear, “You’re great at that. You know, I still remember when you snuck me into that school play so I could hear the composition score you helped write. You were so… lit up, the whole time. Like a star, you had this glow.” Damien’s hand brushes my face affectionately and I feel undeniable warmth spreading through my chest like a fireplace deep in my heart._

_“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I answer after a moment, smiling to myself, “It meant a lot to me. I worked really hard with Conner on that.”_

_“And you did it. Really well.” Damien murmurs, his voice sounds closer like he’s whispering just for me, “You made a story with nothing but music and that’s what you’ve always been good at. Now, you can harness that same thing to do something… more.”_

_I fight to look over at Damien a little harder than before, my head is spinning as questions begin to circle, it literally makes the gold and green of the world around me melt together like a mosaic, “What are you talking about, ‘more’?”_

_Finally, that something that was holding me back releases me and I jerk to look over at Damien only to find that I’m not on my porch any longer. I’m standing in a neverending plain, the grasses reach my mid-waist and the sky is overcast with stormy gray clouds that darken the golden grasses to a deep mustard. The wind is wild and pushing against me at every turn, I have to lean into it to stay upright._

_“I’m just trying to help.”_

_I blink and look around to find the source of the voice but I see no one as I glance over the tops of the deep flaxon shades of grass. The voice is like that of a small child, one that I vaguely recognize from a far away memory. The wind howls and I have to hold my hand up to keep the wind from blinding me._

_“Where am I?” I ask, turning around in circles. I feel a hand tug on the hem of my shirt and when I look down I see a dark, cosmic blue shadow standing in front of me; they’re the size of a toddler and they have these completely white eyes, no irises, no pupils, just whiteness, clouded like fog on the top of a mountain peak._

_“I know you.” I murmur, my eyebrows furrowed as I regard the child._

_“I don’t know why this keeps happening,” The kid says. Their form shimmers like sunlight on water, I can see the flash of sharp teeth where their mouth should be but its form is uncertain, I can’t even discern if it’s a real thing standing in front of me or a clump of midnight smoke. “This is a weird place. I don’t know where I am.”_

_I look down at the unmoving child as their head is tilted up to look at me with those eerie pale eyes, I can’t even tell if they’re actually looking at me or not. Quietly I murmur, “I don’t either.”_

_“All I really know is what you’re doing, where you are. I’m still learning and catching up.” The kid holds up two hands towards me with an expectant expression and something inside me stirs with some kind of recognition; I kneel down next to them and hold out my hands, they place their hands on top of mine. There are only two fingers and a thumb on each hand and I’m taken aback at how their skin looks_ **_exactly_ ** _like the night sky, a dark blue and black with freckles of stars across their skin that glimmer just like they do on a clear night, but the longer that I look at them the more uncertain their form becomes, it’s making my gaze swim._

_“I can see you though. I can see who you are. I guess it must be her.” I look at the kid’s face and see a row of shark teeth smiling at me, violet crinkles beneath the child’s white eyes like joyful crow’s feet. “She’s doing her best. I’m just trying to help when I feel you.”_

_“What do you mean?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, watching the kid with growing confusion._

_The smile fades and their hands pull away from me, and as I look into their milky white eyes, familiar, pale blue irises form and I hear Damien’s voice coming from their mouth as clear as a bell, “You know how make something out of nothing, you have this power to create and destroy at your fingertips… you just have to learn how to use it.”_

… 

I take a sleepy breath as I’m pulled from slumber, rolling onto my side and slowly upright. I hear the rasp of deep breathing, when I look over my shoulder I can see Hunk, Pidge, and Lance are all still asleep, splayed and curled around and on top of each other in a nest of apparent bliss; each of them have some sort of rested or peaceful expression on their faces. I let out a quiet noise, chewing on my lip a little as I sit upright fully, crossing my legs beneath me. 

Something tells me the dream I just had was important. But the thing is the harder I think about it, I can’t remember much of what my dream was about. I furrow my eyebrows and rise slowly so as not to wake the others, grabbing my notebook from the shelf at the foot of my bed and opening to a blank page. I snatch up the pen and close my eyes, focusing on the feelings, tracing it into the words and the faces… _something about this was important. I can’t know unless I remember it._

I grasp desperately at the remaining parts of my dream. I was sitting on a porch… my porch, from my house back in Virginia, I remember seeing the mountains in the distance. But Damien was there, for some reason, but he was talking, telling me weird things… _“You know how make something out of nothing, you have this power to create and destroy at your fingertips… you just have to learn how to use it.”_ I write it down in a flurry as they come back to me, describing with as much sensory details as possible before writing the last sentence in quotes at the end.

_That sounds pretty important, but… What the fuck is that supposed to mean?_

I chew on my lip and sit back down on my bed with my notebook in my lap. I rest my chin in my hand, looking down at my comforter to think before my gaze drops to the White Lion’s stone hanging around my neck. Kevin’s still uselessly curled around it, unblinking and unmoving, and although the stone altogether doesn’t feel at all different something within me stirs, like my heart is just waking up and now it’s wide awake and excited about it. 

 _Wait a minute… Allura told me that the stone making Kevin was some manner of… what the fuck did she call it, quintessence transmutation? Something like that? I remember her telling me that the Alteans would study and call that alchemy, which obviously isn’t the alchemy that_ **_I_ ** _know but… that’s how she said Kevin must’ve come about… the stone created something out of nothing._

_I think that this might be related. I need to know more about this, as soon as possible._

I get up again as quickly and as quietly as I’m physically able to, pausing only briefly to tap the holographic panel on the wall by my side of the ultra bed; it’s 6am. _Well it’s not too early, Allura’s got to be up by now, right? She’s been helping Coran with the teludav, maybe she’s there already? Or Coran is, maybe… no, probably, she’s mentioned he’s been slaving over that thing so he’s probably already there, and he’ll know where Allura is._

I put on some pants and my flannel from the depths of my drawer, setting my notebook back on my shelf before I slip out of my room and into the hallway as quietly as I can manage, stepping over the slumbering forms of my friends like a shadow so as not to disturb them.

_Maybe Coran will be able to tell me more about it, too. He’s got troves of knowledge, he’s go to at least know of what I’m talking about, right?_

I make my way through the quiet halls of the Castle as the morning dawns, shivering as the chill of the metal floors soaks into the skin of my bare feet. _Should’ve grabbed shoes. Got too excited about quintessence stuff to think about it, I guess._

 _Allura said she was going to be an alchemist before… well, Zarkon. Or, take the test to be one or whatever, but that means that she may just know how to do it, the transmutation I mean. If my pendant really is some method to do quintessence transmutation, I can’t even begin to imagine how monumentous this could be, imagine having the power to morphing one molecule and changing it into another? Making something from something else,_ **_anything_ ** _else? I could make thousands of dollars out of dirt. I could make water out of air to make it rain in a whole other way, that could solve so many problems in terms of providing clean water for all. I could turn someone to stone like Medusa, I could probably even replace a Galra’s blood or something with honey and that would-_

I feel my feet stall a little, my heart leaping into my throat as the thought passes so _casually_ that I could kill someone with my amulet. _Potentially. I still don’t know what it could do, but… wow, let’s not jump straight to fucking_ **_murder_ ** _. Jesus Christ._

I shiver as I wrap my arms around myself as I walk, chilled for a brand new reason. _That’s probably exactly why the Alteans kept that such a closely guarded secret from the others, especially the Galra. It would be so easy to just… turn it into something nefarious like that. If I could turn a Galra to stone as simply as Kevin formed from the air, that’s an_ **_insane_ ** _amount of power. I’m talking like, godlike power, here. Even though everything with the lions and Voltron seems to be treading the line between science and magic, this is tipping it off of that balance._

_Maybe I’m just misinterpreting it. I’m sure it’s nothing that easy; it has to have some sort of cost, right? Jesus, how the hell am I supposed to phrase these questions to Coran and Allura? My head is spinning on its own, I need to straighten shit out so I don’t confuse them._

_Ha, as if I could ever think straight._

I turn a corner and head into the wormholer room. The last time, and first time, I was here we all got posed in awkward positions all in the cylindrical chamber to make that one last jump to escape Zarkon when he was chasing us across the galaxy. I didn’t get a great look around the room because of the fear of imminent danger, but now as I peek into the room I see that it’s definitely far more cluttered in here than it was before. There’s bowls stacked on bowls on one panel on the right side of the room with a bundle of blankets hastily tossed beneath it, and scattered across the floor and every surface are stacks and stacks of the teludav lenses we went to get from the space mall. Some are multiple stacks lumped together, others are just one or two lenses, but they’re in clearly organized segments. At the far end of the room is Coran, crouched inside of the cylindrical part of the teludav with a fine toothed tool, like syringes lined up with multiple hooks curled in his fist, it looks to me like he’s fastening the lens in its place on the mesh plating all around the teludav chamber. 

“Morning, Coran.” I announce my presence quietly so as not to startle him, picking my way gingerly over to the teludav to him. 

He doesn’t look up, but he does respond with his same jovial manner, “Good morning, Will! You’re up early.” 

“Yeah, guess I just got a good night’s rest.” I say plaintively as I pause just outside of the teludav; I don’t want to step inside, don’t wanna accidentally mess up something he’s doing when he’s been working so hard the past few days. “How are you?” I ask with a tilt of my head, leaning an arm on the circular door that shuts in front of the teludav, _the door that shut us in last time I was here._

“Work on the teludav is progressing, I’ve finished sorting each of the lenses by tankors and vyliums and am now working on the alignment when it’s needed!” Coran answers, although his tone is conversational his expression is furrowed and focused, his concentration is so intense I could probably reach out and touch it as he continues, “It takes a steady hand and a meticulous eye, but don’t you worry - the Coranic has it _all_ under control.” He jolts as the tool in his hand suddenly buzzes, causing him to nearly drop it. Slowly he pulls it away and stands upright, letting out a sigh like he was holding his breath before he turns towards me with a grin, “I’d say I’m getting close to a third of the way done.” 

I blink at him and smile enthusiastically, “Oh! That’s great!” 

“Don’t get your hopes too far up, though.” Coran says with a finger raised in the air, stepping out of the teludav, “I still have to micro-align them afterwards, run diagnostics and compatibility with the system, and only _then_ can we start running tests!” 

“Oh.” I respond with wide eyes as he strides past, he holds a finger up to trail his piles and piles of lenses before he finds the one he’s looking for, turning back towards the teludav with a brisk, busy pep in his step like he’s on the clock. “Sorry,” I laugh awkwardly, looking down and fiddling with the hem of my shirt, “Probably sound like Shiro. I’m not trying to rush you, I just wanted to see how you were doing.” 

Coran’s mustache twists as he smiles, the blue marks on his face seem to have darkened outlines at the movement as he answers, “Don’t worry, I understand.” He glances up at me briefly as he stands inside the teludav before looking back at his work, lifting the tonged tool and encompassing it around a broken lens as it makes soft crackling sounds like tinfoil. “But there was something else that you wanted to ask about, isn’t there?” 

I blink in surprise and immediately flush in embarrassment, “No! Maybe I just wanted to check in on you because you’re my friend, our tireless engineer, who’s working around the clock to get the teludav working!” 

Coran raises an eyebrow as he glances over at me and I let out a huff, feeling my face burn as I speak, “Okay, maybe. But it worked doubly to check on you!” 

“Of course, of course.” Coran responds kindly, resting a hand on the meshed plating behind the lens to stand steadier as he turns the tool in his hand about the broken lens. “How can I help?” 

I bite my lip, peering at him as I think, _fuck, where do I start?_ “What do you know about Altean alchemy?” 

Coran almost immediately freezes, looking at the broken lens in front of him before he turns to look at me with a strange expression, guarded and almost suspicious, “What do you know about alchemy?” 

I shift from foot to foot, regarding Coran with furrowed eyebrows, “Allura told me about it. I was uh… Okay so I gotta explain from the beginning, so the stone that my lion gave me,” I produce it from under my shirt, tugging on the chain outwards so the stone is in view of Coran’s peripheral as he works on the broken lens, “It made this little dragon around it on the first day I got it and he does weird stuff sometimes, but only sometimes, most of the time he doesn’t do anything, but when I asked her about how he kinda came about she said it sounded like quintessence transmutation, which is what Altean alchemists study.” 

Coran purses his lips, stuffing the tool in his hand between his legs as he uses both of his hands to gently pry the broken pieces of the lens out of the teludav, gathering the pieces at hand before he tosses them outside of the teludav just at my feet. He picks up the tool again in one hand and glances at me with a much more amiable expression, “I see. Well, if the Princess deemed to share the secrets of Altean alchemy with you then you probably know far more than I.” 

“That’s the thing though, I really don’t know anything about it, she just kinda gave me a brief overview of what it is.” I reply swiftly, letting the White Lion’s stone drop back to my chest, “To be frank, I don’t even know if the stone actually _does_ that. I’d just like to know more, see if you’d know a way to kind of… test if it can do it or whatever, see what the extent of it is so I can know what it _does._ ” I let out a drawn out, frustrated sigh, hanging my head as my voice drops, “I just wanna know what the stone’s for, and this is the closest lead I’ve got right now.” 

Coran has paused in his work, listening to me with a cold light in his silvered gaze before he walks out of the teludav. As he picks up the teludav lens fragments on the ground he straightens and pats me on the shoulder, giving me a firm, parental look as he says, “There’s a reason why Alteans have always kept the secrets of alchemy close. It’s a difficult, taxing thing, extremely so. Most Alteans are even genetically unable to attempt to learn the science, but it has the potential to be incredibly powerful.” 

I nod, chewing on my lip briefly before I speak, recalling my conversation with Allura, “That’s why you were so distressed when we went to the space base; that ritual they were doing, that was what you’d call alchemy, isn’t it?” 

Coran tilts his head to the side and presses a thoughtful finger to his lips, “Not quite alchemy, but something twistedly similar.” He looks at me for a moment before he turns back to walk into the teludav, pulling the fresh lens with him and fixing it in the slot the broken lens was as he continues on, “From what I could tell, they were converting raw quintessence into something like liquid fuel. That kind of raw quintessence is incredibly hard to obtain, the only way that I can think of is that the Galra must have destroyed something so completely that its very molecular structure was crushed. However, quintessence at such a state is like a shell, it has nothing within it because it has no bonds to which it’s created. But what troubles me the most was the Galra that was performing the ritual.” Coran furrows his eyebrows as he twists his wrist to move the tool around the new lens, “I’d never seen such power before. Considering the beginning and the end result, it seems to me that whatever that purple lightning was, it was the life force that the raw quintessence was lacking, combining it together formed it into the refined quintessence we saw.” 

I blink in surprise, furrowing my eyebrows as I try to wrap my head around what the fuck he just said. _So, the purple lightning’s… life force? Like the inside quintessence that the orange outside quintessence lacks? The peanut to the shell?_ “Why would they do that? Break it down then fill it up again?” 

Coran frowns a little as he moves his wrists slightly with the strange tool at hand, “I assume it is so that they can obtain the raw quintessence from any source. That way they would not have to worry about obtaining power from one place.”

 _… Alright. I’ll give it to the Galra, that’s smart. Reduce anything to a shell they control to shove whatever they want into it._ “Then are they able to get that life force to fill the raw quintessence with?” I ask, tilting my head, already a headache is forming, “Like, how is a Galra able to… _project_ it like that? Is it their own quintessence?” 

Coran adjusts himself for a better angle to fasten the lens, “Perhaps. But sucking out one’s own quintessence like that… it’s incredibly painful. I doubt that they would have survived for more than a few of those cycles you and Keith showed us if they were. And they would probably be screaming a lot more.” Coran adds the last bit in a jesting tone yet it does nothing but send a chill up my spine. He shakes his head as the bare hint of a smile fades completely from his amiable features, “The far more horrifying explanation that I can think of is that the Galra are somehow obtaining the life force of… something else… and filling themselves with it, giving them something like an overload of quintessence to be spent in that ritual.” 

I stare at Coran with wide eyes, a cold stone resting in the pit of my stomach as I latch onto his words, “You think they’re sucking the life essence out of _people_?” 

“I really can’t say for sure. These are all speculations. We cannot know until we get more information, or samples of the raw or refined quintessence.” Coran abridges with an aside look at me, slowly pulling the tool away from the lens as it’s fastened in place. He stretches his shoulders, glancing over at me before he lets out a gust of air, “That was quite a tangent. You were asking me about your lion’s stone, before.”

“Uh… yeah.” I mutter, a bit numbly. _Jesus Christ, that makes that whole thing we saw so much worse than I thought. Where did the life force come from? Is that why they take prisoners? Sucking the life force out of them and then filling it in the raw quintessence using those Galra druids as conduits? Is that why they took Shiro prisoner? No, he was put in a gladiator ring. Sick fucks, everyone in the fucking empire seems to be in some sort of twisted cycle of death. Jesus Christ, they must be doing this across the galaxy. This is some seriously dark shit, next level evil. How could the Galra do this? How could they_ **_allow_ ** _this? I can’t imagine, sucking out someone’s basic life force, agonizing according to Coran… Oh God._

_What if that’s what happened to Pidge’s dad and brother?_

I force that thought from my mind as quickly as I physically possible. _There’s no way to be sure. Don’t think like that, you don’t know what happened to them. And the last thing I need to do is say anything to Pidge about it. She’s been working tirelessly day in and day out to find them, when she isn’t training with us she’s making lines of code to decrypt the Blade of Marmora’s data. After hearing her talk about them… there’s no way that I can afford to think like that. For her sake._

“May I see it for a moment?” Coran’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts and as I blink I see him standing in front of me with a hand outstretched, an eyebrow raised with a polite tilt of his head. I take the stone off of my neck and place it in his hand, and as it leaves I’m filled with a sense of emptiness. Like I had hand warmers throughout my body that I’d gotten used to but now they’re gone and I feel colder than before even though there’s nothing around that would make me cold. I never noticed it much before, but recently it’s becoming more and more stark when I take it off and then put it back on. _Wonder what that means. Another goddamn mystery._

Coran fixes the stone with a concentrated gaze, running a gloved thumb across Kevin’s ridged spine, “And what is it you called this?” 

“His name is Kevin.” I mutter lamely, chuckling softly to myself, “It’s a nickname I gave him. One evening he kind of just… appeared out of thin air, while I was thinking about my family back on Earth. I was talking to Pidge and Hunk about it and they think that that’s probably what triggered it, because then he went to the bridge and sent an astral projection or something through the teludav to Earth for my parents to see that I was alright.” 

Coran raised an eyebrow and, dare I say, looks vaguely impressed as I looks back down at the amulet with a renewed gaze, “How clever! I never would’ve thought of that!” 

“Oh. Hello, Will!” Coran and I both turn in sync towards the doorway as Allura walks in. She’s wearing long robes with sleeves that drape at her elbows and her hair is in one long braid down her back, and in both hands she bears a bowl of goo. “I brought you breakfast, Coran, I know you haven’t eaten.” 

Coran chuckles, handing me my stone back as he turns towards her, “You know me too well, Princess.” 

I pull the stone back on as I’m resurged with its warmth, turning towards Allura with renewed purpose, “Morning, Allura! I was looking for you, actually; I wanted to ask you some more about Altean alchemy, and if there’s any way I could try and figure out if my stone’s doing that… you know, quintessence transmutation business and if it is, how to use it.” 

Allura hands Coran the bowl of goo which he takes quickly, immediately beginning to gobble it down as she turns to me, “I’m not sure if I’ll be too much help with alchemy’s more practical components. I was never inducted among the alchemists and all of their knowledge was closely guarded by them. No one on Altea, even in the royal family, could tell you more than I have.”

“Indeed. I was surprised you told him, Princess.” Coran nods as he makes a side glance at Allura, “Not that I would ever question-”

“It’s alright, Coran.” Allura affirms with a gentle smile, glancing over at me with a twitch of her pointed ears, “If quintessence transmutation is what the White Lion’s stone is capable of, then it is our duty to try and help her Paladin know how to use it to take down Zarkon.” 

I try not to internally freak out a little about that. _I don’t even wanna think about the kind of power this shit can have. If Zarkon could do it… Well he found a way to turn quintessence transmutation into some kind of wicked power source so I know exactly what he would do with it. He must’ve spent so many resources to get that to happen. But how did he figure it out? T_

“So, is there a way to know if that’s what it does?” I ask hopefully, clenching my stone in my hand a little tighter. “Because it might be something else. The lions are weird like that.” 

“They certainly are rather fickle at times.” Allura replies with a thoughtful expression, her gaze listing off to the side, “My father would say something similar, about how every time that he would think he knew his lion he would learn something new about her.” 

I watch her curiously, tilting my head to the side, “He was the Red Paladin, right?” 

Allura nods. Beside her, Coran sets down his bowl of goo, now empty, _damn_ , and turns to me with a dull light in his silvered eyes, “He was perfect for the Red Lion; one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen and the kind of man you’d want to have in a tight situation.” 

Instinctively I think of Keith. _Sounds just like him; best pilot absolutely, someone you’d want to have at your back in a tight situation for sure. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him when we faced down Zarkon that one time. That time I almost died, apparently. Still haven’t really thought about that._

_Let’s keep it that way._

“About your lion’s stone,” Allura begins, her eyebrows furrowed as she regards me with an analytical gaze, “You say that the creature upon it… Carvin?”

I can’t help but smirk a little, “Kevin.” 

“Of course - _Kevin_ was the only thing to manifest in regards to the amulet? And it was alive?”

I nod, already pouting in frustration, “Yeah, he’s only ever woke up once or twice. First time was when he did the projecting thing,” I count on my fingers, tilting my head to the side in thought, “And when the bomb went off in the Castle back on Arus he woke up and went to Lance; I think he was showing me that I could heal him with the amulet’s powers. But after that… nill.”

Allura frowns slightly, regarding the stone with interest as she begins to think aloud, “Perhaps it is the circumstances of which you find yourself that cause the creature to activate.” 

“That’s what Pidge and Hunk were thinking.” I murmur, crossing my arms, “But just the two times he’s done anything doesn’t really give me any hint at a pattern. Like, I can’t really see how doing the teludav projection thing could be related to when my stone healed me for the first time back on Arus.”

“Perhaps we are thinking about this in too literal of a manner.” Coran pipes up, twisting his mustache at hand, “If your stone is capable of quintessence transmutation, then that means it somehow created this Kevin to accomplish a task. Why would it choose this form in particular, and what purpose would it achieve?” 

I blink in surprise at Coran and look off to the side, thinking quietly to myself before I answer, “Well, I dunno. It’s a dragon. It’s a mythological creature from back on Earth…” I cross my arms, flushing a little, “... It’s also kind of my favorite animal, I guess. But I don’t see how-”

“That’s it, then.” Coran says with a start, his ears twitch like a cat’s with the movement, “It took a form that was familiar to you.”

I furrow my eyebrows, “Well, in lore dragons are a whole lot bigger than this, though.” 

“Perhaps its purpose is to be your guide.” Allura offers, her hands clasped in her lap, “That’s why it hasn’t gone away, and continues to activate occasionally when needed.” 

Looking down at Kevin’s still form around the stone, I can’t help growing slightly bitter. “Well, he’s been sucking at that. I feel like I’ve needed a lot of guidance of what the fuck’s going on with my lion, and he hasn’t done anything about it but the twice.” 

Coran and Allura look at one another with puzzled looks. _Well, it’s kind of a relief that at least this is a mystery to everyone and not just me. But also, how fucking annoying that it’s such a mystery._ “Is there any way to get it to do something like making Kevin?” I ask after a moment, flickering my gaze to Allura and Coran equally, “Would you know how to start a transmutation?” 

Allura shakes her head swiftly, “That is one of the many secrets that Altean alchemists swore never to reveal. Unfortunately we will have to learn along with you on how your stone works.” 

“Lovely.” I mutter bitterly under my breath, looking down at the stone. Its surface is shimmery like an opal beneath the harsh overhead lights, open and mysterious. I sigh and pull the chain back over my head, looking at Coran and Allura with a slight shrug, “Thanks for the help. Sorry I bothered you while you’re working, I just wanted to… I don’t know, try to get a few answers.” 

“Of course, we are sorry that we are unable to help more.” Allura’s gaze is soft and gentle as she regards me, her hands moving to rest at her sides as she turns to face Coran, “Com me if you require assistance, Coran. I will remain by the bridge to assist you however I can.” 

“Thank you, Princess.” Coran nods politely to her as he turns away towards the one of stacks of lenses surrounding the room, looking for the next lens; I step carefully over them to exit the room after Allura.

“Did you rest well last night?” Allura asks me politely as the door slides shut behind me, turning to walk with me. 

I step in with her and shrug nonchalantly, “Pretty alright. Though every night more and more people are coming in to sleep on my floor.” I chuckle softly to myself, at least until I glance over and see Allura looking at me with mild confusion. “Uh… Long story.” I mutter, running a hand through my hair self consciously, “I’m sure you’ve got all kinds of stuff to do, huh?”

“I’m leaving myself to be available for Coran if he were to need me, I have nothing in particular to occupy me.” Allura answers simply, tilting her head at me with a raised eyebrow, “Do you know what Shiro has planned for your training today?”

I shake my head with a soft scoff, “Please, I have no idea what he’s thinking half the time, nevertheless what he’s planning. Probably something exhausting and dangerous.”

Allura’s expression is resolute, staring ahead of us as we walk, “I understand that it can be difficult, but training in intermittent periods such as this is incredibly important.”

I wave a hand at her, “Yeah, yeah I know. I’m just not used to it, I never… _trained_ on Earth. I mean, I did kind of for a little bit but that was for sports and not for like… you know. Saving the universe. It’s a bit of an adjustment is all.” 

We reach the kitchens and I move towards the doorway, jutting a thumb towards it, “Have you had breakfast?”

“I have, yes.” She flickers her gaze from my hand to the door before she turns to keep going down the hall, “I should head to the bridge in case Coran needs me.” 

“... Alright.” I murmur long after she’s gone, pursing my lips slightly to myself before I turn and head into the kitchen for some breakfast. 

When I walk in Shiro is already there in his Voltron suit, holding a large communal bowl and filling it with goo from the dispensers. He raises an eyebrow at me as the door opens before he flashes me an amicable smile, “Looking alive and alert.” 

“Only half right.” I reply with snark as I gesture to the bowl, “Getting breakfast for everyone?”

Shiro nods and drops the nozzle once the bowl is full, holding it with his prosthetic hand as he rifles in the drawer by the door for bowls and spoons, “I was just about to take it to the dining room while waiting for everyone to get up.”

“Here, lemme.” I reach into the drawer and grab the bowls for him, jutting my chin to the doorway once I have them, “Lead on, I got these.” 

“Thanks.” He hums under his breath as we stride out. I walk beside him with the bowls hugged to my chest comfortably, and after we’re out of the kitchen Shiro glances over at me with a raised eyebrow, “You’re up early.” 

“Maybe I’m always up early, but you just never see me.” I reply enigmatically, smirking. 

He shakes his head with a slight, upward twist of his mouth before his expression turns more serious, looking at me more purposefully as we take a turn towards the dining room, “Have you been sleeping okay?”

I glance over at Shiro with narrowed eyes, immediately my defensive hackles rise before I realize that I really have nothing to be defensive about. _I dunno. I can’t help it, I don’t like being prodded, immediately I always think of the seventeen different boxes of shit I purposefully never deal with stacked up in my head, only a few of which keep me up at night while most just fuck with me in my dreams. Is this how the others feel when I’m gleaning them for information? Probably not, I feel like I’d get a lot more dirty looks._ “Better than can be said for when I was on Earth.” I answer after a beat of silence as we walk into the dining room, “But related to that, I wanted to ask you something: has Pidge or Hunk talked to you about their dreams?” 

Shiro blinks at me and his expression immediately answers my question for me before he even opens his mouth. “I… No? What have they said?” 

_Damnit. I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t want to go telling everyone on the ship about Hunk and Pidge’s stuff, it’s their personal business and I don’t want to spread it… but Shiro also should know, he is our leader… But also, this is their thing. If I were them, I wouldn’t want me to be blabbing about it to everyone when I see fit. They should decide how or when their dreams should be shared._

“Nothing for me to say.” I set the bowls on the table, piling the spoons on top before stepping back from the table so Shiro can set down the bigger bowl, “Just uh… You should ask them about how they’re sleeping, if you get the chance.” 

Shiro fixes me with a searching gaze as he straightens, his arms crossing comfortably over his chest, “Has this got to do with there being three mattresses on your floor?” 

I blink at him stupidly before giving him a jesting smirk, “Been snooping in my room?” 

“I was looking for you yesterday after dinner and saw them there.” He answers after a moment with a slight, lackadaisical shrug, “As long as you guys don’t stay up too late, I see no problem with slumber parties.” 

“Oh geez, thanks for the permission, dad.” I joke with a shake of my head, elbowing Shiro playfully. He merely raises a confused eyebrow at me that’s so familiar that it gives me a momentary stroke. _That look is so much like Keith’s. Holy shit. That’s kind of scary. I mean, that makes sense, they’ve known each other for a while, they’re bound to have some similar mannerisms… I wonder if Keith got it from him._ “Don’t worry,” I end while clearing my throat, “It’s not all just for fun and games… and that’s all I can really say about it.” I say, raising a finger at him to desist from any further questions as I slide into a seat at the table, piling up some goo into a bowl for myself. 

“... Okay.” Shiro mutters, giving me another momentary confused look before he taps his wrist to access his suit’s computer, looking at something upon the holographic surface before he sits down to join me, grabbing a bowl for himself and piling on some goo. 

“How about you?” I ask. Shiro looks up at me with a raised eyebrow so I continue for clarification, “How did you sleep?”

“Oh. Just fine.” Shiro shrugs nonchalantly, stirring his goo in the bowl before he eats some.

I look down at my bowl and rest my chin in my hand as I eat, content to sit in quiet as I let my thoughts mull over the morning’s events. _That talk with Allura and Coran was incredibly valuable. Even if I feel completely fucking lost about what’s going on with my stone, I learned a lot about that whole… “refinement” process. Or, at least, I learned about Allura and Coran’s thoughts are on it, which is leagues beyond what I could’ve hoped to have come up with. I wonder if they’ve shared them with Shiro? What does he think about it?_

“Hey Shiro,” I ask suddenly, sitting up a little as I fix him with a questioning gaze, “Did Allura or Coran mentioned anything to you about-” 

The door to the dining room opens and Keith walks in. He’s got that stupid jacket on with his bayard at hand, which he slaps on the table when he’s close and slides into the seat opposite of me and next to Shiro, immediately going for the bowl of goo without a word’s greeting. 

“Done training already?” Shiro asks with a raised eyebrow. 

“I figured the others would be waking up soon.” Keith answers plaintively as he piles some goo in his bowl, his voice crackles I think from disuse before he clears his throat and finishes in a husky undertone, “So I thought I’d get breakfast first.”

Shiro nods, “Good thinking.” We sit in continued silence for only a beat before he turns back towards me, “You were asking me about whether Allura and Coran mentioned something?”

I blink for a solid ten seconds before I remember what I was talking about, “Oh, yeah. I was talking to them in the wormholer room earlier and Coran was telling me about what he thought the refinement thing was back at the space base. I was just wondering if he’d told you his thoughts about it.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow, the sound of the spoon scraping the bottom of the bowl intermingling with his words, “Only that it was an empowerment process, but nothing beyond that. Did he say anything more to you?”

I pause for a moment and wonder whether it was okay for me to say anything. _Allura and Coran both were very hesitant telling me about quintessence transmutation because it’s a big Altean secret, apparently. But this is really important for them to know, if it’s something Zarkon’s doing to power all his shit. I’m taking it upon myself to spill these beans, only because of their relevancy and importance._ “Both Coran and Allura told me that they think it’s some form of quintessence transmutation, a kind that they’ve never seen before.” 

“Transmutation?” Keith echoes, and when I look over at him he’s peering at me with a raised eyebrow, “How’s that work?”

“Well,” I set my spoon down, speaking more with my hands, “Coran theorizes that-”

“Good _morning_!” The door to the dining room bursts open and Lance, Pidge, and Hunk all roll in together in various states of dishevelment, like they wrestled in order to get through the door. Lance points a finger at me with an accusing look, “Where’ve you been? You disappeared on us!”

I blink at him in confusion as the trio gather around the table and get their food, taking a second to think before I answer, “Well, I woke up and was ready to go, so…”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you’re complaining,” Pidge retorts, sitting with her chin in her hand, “We both got more room and more blankets with him out.” 

“So it works out.” I chuckle, leaning back a bit in my seat. I look back to my bowl and when I glance back up I see Keith giving me a clueless look, one I think that I can read as _what’re you talking about?_ I straighten a bit and jut a thumb at the others, “These chucklefucks are sleeping on my floor.” _Oh my God, yay! I think I just read his expression successfully! Someone give me a fucking medal!_

“Chuckle- _what?_ ” Hunk snorts, covering a hand over his mouth as he nearly spews goo across the table, “ _Pfft._ That’s such a weird word.” 

As I watch Hunk I recall his nightmare last night, and immediately my attention hones in on him fully and closely. He seems like normal, he doesn’t visually look withdrawn, tired, or disturbed. Without knowing he had a test dream last night, I wouldn’t have guessed he slept poorly at all. _That’s a relief. Maybe everyone sleeping together really is helping. I hope he isn’t just putting on airs._

“Why?” Keith’s question draws my attention back to him, his head is tilted, he genuinely looks like a confused puppy and it’s such a cute look it makes my heart clench in my chest. _Oh. Good morning, gay feelings._

Pidge, Hunk, and Lance all look at one another and then at me. I make a gesture towards Pidge and Hunk, nodding my head as if to say _it’s on you, you tell them what you want to tell them._

Hunk rests both of his elbows on the table and clears his throat, flickering his gaze from Keith to Shiro, “Okay, listen, I know it sounds like a slumber party but it is actually for a kind of important reason. We uh…” He balks, glancing over at Pidge with a pleading look. 

Pidge meets his gaze and there is a brief, ten second bit of them tossing back and forth the _no you tell them_ look before Pidge sighs and twists in her seat, looking at Shiro and stating point blank, “Hunk and I are getting test dreams like Will’s.” 

Shiro blinks a bit before he looks over at me with a questioning gaze, “Test what?” 

Keith leans his elbows on the table and I balk a bit when I meet his eyes, they glimmer with hidden stars in the harsh overhead lights as he peers at me with stark intensity that I was not emotionally ready for, my heart pounds a bit loudly in my ears as he speaks, “Are you talking about the dreams you had back on Earth? Like what you had on the moon?”

It takes me at least three seconds of _wow, I’m gay_ to fully get around to recognizing I’m a human being on this realm of existence, but once I’m back I clear my throat and nod, “... Yeah. It seems just like it.” 

“Can you elaborate?” Shiro asks with a raised eyebrow, looking to each of us for more information. 

“So, for all three of us it starts the same,” Hunk takes over, gesturing idly towards Pidge and I, “Our lions kind of like… come to us, on some kind of plane. And I’m not talking like our lions in our hangers, I mean a literal lion, but we know that it’s our lions because their fur colors match. Like, mine’s yellow, but more like a gold yellow, not like a normal lion yellow-”

“Mine’s green, so you know, more obvious.” Pidge cuts in, her hands now worming under her seat as she looks at her bowl of untouched goo with a curled nose of lost appetite. 

Shiro abruptly sucks in breath softly, if I wasn’t right next to him I don’t think I would’ve heard it. I look over at him with a raised eyebrow and see him looking down at his empty food bowl with furrowed eyebrows and a slight frown. 

Keith noticed it as well, as he immediately freezes and looks at him with a look of close inspection and worry, “Shiro?” 

“... I think I know what you’re talking about.” Shiro says after a moment, looking up as he flickers his gaze to each of us, “When I was bonding with the Black Lion while you guys were getting the scaultrite lenses, the same thing happened to me.” 

A cold sense of dread washes over me as I look at Shiro’s expression. _Not you, too. Have you been having dreams this whole time and not told any of us? How have I not seen? He’s been acting normally, I never would have thought-_

“Well, after that point comes the bad things.” Hunk replies, watching his thick fingers drumming on the table, “And for each of us they get different. But all around bad.”

“Really bad.” Pidge mirrors, her gaze stooped and staring directly at her food bowl. 

Looking at Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge’s expressions digs a claw of ice into my chest and spreads permafrost through my veins, seizing my throat and causing me to nearly choke on the goo I swallowed. I dig my fingernails in my right hand into my palm as something black and full of rage rears its head in my stomach, I have to be conscious about taking a normal breath rather than a shaky one.

_I hate it. I hate that they’re going through this like I did. This isn’t fair. I swear, I’m gonna fight each of their lions, I don’t care that they’re megaton war machines, I’ll fight them for hurting my friends like this._

With a sharp exhale I turn and face Shiro, there’s a slight tremble in my voice that I fight to suppress, “What happened with yours? Tell us everything.” 

Shiro frowns a little, sitting back with his arms crossed over his chest, “When I went into my lion to bond while you guys were at the space mall, at first nothing was happening. I tried to reach out to it but nothing answered me until suddenly my lion burst out of the hanger and we left.” His frown deepens as he continues, “It took me to the remains of a shattered planet, and showed me that it once was Zarkon’s home planet, Daibazaal. It showed me its history with Zarkon, from him being its chosen Paladin until the planet’s destruction by a meteor strike.” We all stare at Shiro with rapt attention and cold silence as he continues, “Then, it all kind of abruptly faded away and then I was in this strange… place, I suppose. It was like I was on a frozen lake at night , or the ground was a huge mirror, I don’t really know which. My lion appeared before me, just as you guys described, and that’s when Zarkon appeared.” 

“Like, literally?” Hunk asks with wide eyes. 

Immediately I grip the edge of the table as I watch Shiro carefully, “Was this a dream?”

Shiro shakes his head, “No. It was _very_ real.” Shiro frowns, looking down at the tabletop, “He attacked me and we fought. I would have lost if the Black Lion hadn’t interfered. When I opened my eyes again, I was in the Black Lion’s hanger, like we never even left. Allura told me later that we didn’t actually leave, so I suppose that was a part of the vision.” He glances over at me and his expression softens, “It wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t asleep.” 

There’s a hard lump in my throat as I regard Shiro, but at least the tension in his shoulders is alleviated as he concludes the tale. _So it must have been a vision, just like the one I had on the moon._ I pursue with an edge in my voice, “Was it… was it _telling_ you to fight? Did it dissolve into smoke and then form Zarkon?”

“No, nothing like that.” Shiro says, “It was standing there, looking at me and then on the other side of it Zarkon just… appeared. Out of nowhere.”

“What did you mean earlier, if the Black Lion hadn’t interfered?” Keith’s voice is as soft as his expression as he watches Shiro closely, as if he’s scanning for injuries. 

Shiro lets out a sigh, his eyes closing for a moment, “I hate to admit it, but Zarkon is a better fighter than I am. Even without his bayard, it wasn’t going well. I don’t remember much of what happened, but I do remember that Zarkon said something to me and I said something back, and after whatever it was that I said the Black Lion appeared and…” Shiro pauses as he glances at each of us, as if to gauge our reaction before he states, “Well… it kind of _mauled_ Zarkon.” 

I curl my nose a bit in distaste. “Oh. Shit.” 

“That’s pretty badass.” Lance mutters, his eyes starry where he sits next to Keith. 

“Well,” Pidge concludes, smacking her lips, “That definitely means that whatever connection Zarkon had with the Black Lion is over.” 

Shiro chuckles softly, a suddenly charming smirk stretching across his features, “Not quite. He still has this… presence, within the Black Lion but it’s not like it was before. He can’t sense me or the Black Lion intentionally any longer, and that’s how I know his connection’s truly gone.” 

The dark flickering in the pit of my stomach refuses to go away. I peer at Shiro with narrowed eyes, “Why didn’t you tell us about this before?” 

Shiro glances over at me briefly before his gaze drops, “I suppose I should have. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it at the time.” 

“Well,” Hunk interrupts, setting both of his hands on either side of his bowl, “I can’t say that I fought a super evil dictator in my dreams. That would’ve been so scary.” 

Shiro frowns, his focus latching onto Hunk and Pidge, “So for you something similar occurs in dreams? What happens?”

“And why are they happening to you now?” Keith rumbles as a followup, his gaze similarly honing onto Hunk beside him.

“We’ve only had one dream each so far.” Hunk answers, glancing over at me, “But based on what happened with Will’s… we don’t think that that’s the last of them.” 

A hard, boiling hot lump rests at the base of my throat, I sit on my hands to keep them from shaking, with fury or fear I can’t even tell anymore. 

Pidge glances over at Hunk and I briefly before she speaks, “Well, first off we think that the dreams are tied to us receiving our stones from our lions. But we think the reason why we’re only just getting the dreams _now_ is because our lions needed an environment when we were emotionally unstable, but not in imminent danger in order to conduct the tests.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow and flickers his gaze between Hunk and Pidge, “... Emotionally unstable?”

“Upset, angry, sad.” Hunk elaborates, tapping his fingertips together sheepishly, “You know, when we’re not happy.” 

“You’re not still getting those dreams, are you?” I blink when I realize I’m being addressed, looking over at Keith with a raised eyebrow. He’s leaning fully on the table, his arms folded on its surface and his eyes are locked on me so intensely I feel like a shrinking violet beneath his gaze, his husky morning voice which is _too damn obscene to be used in conversation_ is hard and almost accusatory. _Jesus Christ. He’s too pretty to be making so much eye contact with me like this, why does he have to like eye contact so much? Wait, he asked me a question._

“Not since we got my lion on day one.” I answer with a shake of my head. “But they started the same way as theirs. That’s how I knew they had to at least be similar.” 

“So the bad bit after your lions appear, that’s when the test part starts?” Lance asks, his eyebrows raised, “Like them being there is the first page where you write your name and stuff, then you turn it and then all the bad stuff you described happens and that’s like the exam questions?”

Hunk raises an eyebrow at Lance before he nods with a slight shrug, “Basically, yeah.”

“So that’s why we’re all piled up in Will’s room.” Pidge continues, wiggling in her seat anxiously, “In case one of us has one of those dreams…”

“They won’t be alone.” I finish, looking over at her with a soft gaze. She looks back at me with a slight smile, the light glints off of her glasses in a white flash. 

“And you think this is a part of having the stones? Or is it some sort of next step?” Shiro asks, his eyebrows furrowed. He’s looking between Pidge and Hunk with full blown fatherly concern firmly etched into his features. 

“In that manner, we’re not sure.” Pidge answers, moving to stack her bowl on top of Hunk’s as she speaks, “Despite the circumstances, though… This might be a good thing. Now we have more data to work with to try and determine what these things are for, and if we continue to have more dreams like Will thinks, then we’ll get even more.” She tugs on the chain around her neck and I can see the pulse of lime light from her stone beneath her hoodie peeking out and reflecting off of her chin. 

I can’t help but growl softly under my breath, “Believe me when I tell you that you’ll get no sort of _data_ from those dreams.” _You shouldn’t be having them at all. You shouldn’t have to suffer for nothing, you shouldn’t have to endure that hell-_

Hunk raises an eyebrow at me and holds his hands out flat, “Well, it will at least show us a pattern.” 

“The only pattern you’re gonna find is the trauma of getting thrown into repetitive cycles of horrible situations where there’s no right answer and no escape.” A stone hardens in my throat as the words spill out without me meaning to, venom and long stashed bitterness drips from them and as soon as they’re out I immediately regret them. I look stare down at my empty bowl with a hard jaw, I feel the others gazes on me but I refuse to look up and meet them. My chest feels ice cold and hollow.

The silence is cut by Lance’s voice ahead of me, “So, if these dreams are tests, then what you gotta do is find out how to pass them.” 

I look up at Lance with a raised eyebrow as the others attentions turn to him. Hunk furrows his eyebrows, “Uh, I don’t think this is like the Garrison entrance exam-”

“No, no, he’s got a point.” Pidge raises a finger and taps it in Lance’s direction, her eyes are suddenly wide with the flash of a new idea, “The lions are trying to do something in these dreams, to glean some sort of information about us, or to prove something. We just have to find out what, and go from there.” She pauses suddenly and looks over at me. Ice crawls up my throat before she can even begin to speak as I see the question hanging in her eyes, “... Will, you’ve had a lot of these dreams-”

“That’s an understatement.” I raise an eyebrow at Keith where he sits unmoving with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks back at me with a look that I think reads _am I wrong?_ But with a lot more pissivity. 

_No. But I’m surprised you… I don’t know, remembered? Care? Why’s he looking at me so much?_

“What I’m saying is,” Pidge continues, her eyebrows furrowing as I turn my attention back to her, “I know you’re not gonna like it, but… you’ve had a lot, and you remember them. If your dreams are over, then that means you somehow passed the White Lion’s tests, so if we can determine the pattern in your dreams and your response to them, then maybe Hunk and I know what to look for in ours.”

Hunk nods enthusiastically, a little overenthusiastically I think to compensate for how nervous he is, based on how wide his eyes are, “It’ll be like taking the answers off of the last year’s tests to study for this year’s!”

My thoughts rage. Nothing coherent, no formulated words, just a huge rush of voices and crashing symbols and violent buzzing that seems to literally smash my consciousness against the wall and hold me staring mutely at Pidge, my chest feels like it’s being thawed from solid ice by being set on fire. 

“I don’t know-” My voice is small. I clear my throat with a cough and try again, “I don’t know any patterns.” _Except that they’re awful, and they always end up with someone getting hurt because of me, because of decisions I made, because I wasn’t fast enough, because I didn’t think quick enough because I’m a fucking failure._

The table is silent, and based on Hunk and Pidge’s expressions I can see their unspoken question hanging in the air like a chandelier made of glass held aloft by one thread. I try to steady the terrified race of my heart as I flicker my gaze around the table, unable to focus on any one person for any longer than a single beat. _Explain why this is a bad idea, Will._ “What good is it going to do for me to recount what I remember? It’ll… I don’t think you guys will want to hear it.” 

“Will,” Shiro’s firm voice pulls my attention to him. His expression is serious and soft, gentle but pleading, “We know it’s going to be hard. Believe me when I say that we wouldn’t ask you to unless we thought it was important… But we need more information.”

“If we can determine a pattern that we can apply to our own tests, then maybe we can pass them faster.” Hunk murmurs in a deploring tone. His expression is soft and warm like chocolate chip cookies. “Less bad dreams is good, right? Then we can get to a place without dreams quicker.” 

This sparks something within me that makes the white noise in my head declutter. _I can help them end their dreams faster. Just gotta recount some of mine… my horrible, scarring, scary nightmares… but it could help end their dreams faster._

I blink and swallow the lump in my throat right as Keith speaks up, “But what if they don’t?” We all turn and look at him as he continues with small movements in his hands to accompany his voice, “The White Lion tested him in a different way than your lions are, and he had his dreams way before he got his lion’s amulet.”

Lance suddenly pipes up, waving a hand aside towards Keith, “Listen, you know I hate to agree with Keith, but-” 

“Forget it, I’ll do it.” I wave a hand dismissively, setting my jaw as I sit more upright. The others look at me with mixed expressions which I quickly push aside with a flick of my wrist, “It’s not a big deal, it’s just dreams, they aren’t real. More information is more information, and that’s something we’re kinda lacking right now.” I glance over at Pidge and Hunk and throw my hands up as if in demonstration, my voice is surprisingly lackadaisical despite how much my heart is racing, “I wanna help. I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know.”

I jump a little when Shiro’s hand touches my shoulder, “Thank you, Will. It’s going to help us get a better understanding of the stones, and lay a groundwork on how Pidge and Hunk go about their dreams.” He says in a gentle tone, giving me a meaningfully thankful look. 

“‘Is fine.” I reply dismissively, glancing over at Pidge and Hunk with a vague gesture towards the door, “Let’s have our little heart to heart or whatever in your hanger or something, so we don’t interfere with team training, yeah?”

“Exactly what team training would we be able to do with just three people?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow, tilting his head to his left towards a paladin in particular, “And with one of those people being, ya know, _the guy who likes to run off and do things on his own_ all the time.” 

“We’re all going to have to go through these trials eventually.” Shiro says as he regards each of us in turn, only finally settling his gaze on me, “If you’re comfortable with it-”

“Sure, whatever.” I throw my hands in the air as I stand up from the table, letting out a huff, “Let’s go, team bonding! It’ll be fun, I’ll make it interesting with _bright hand gestures._ Oh, and cartoon voices. Give me some time and I can make a popup book!” _Jesus, could I try not to sound so hard ass? I’m wigging out. But I’ve gotta show I’m fine. But joking this hard all of a sudden is suspicious, Will, and you damn well know it._  

Shiro narrows his slanted eyes at me suspiciously, “... You don’t have to do it if you don’t want t-”

“I want to!” I state firmly, glaring down at him a little more fiercely than I mean to. I clear my throat and try again, “I want to. Let’s just not dwell on it too much and get the information you need, alright?” 

The others look at one another with mixed expressions for a few beats before Pidge stands up, jutting a thumb towards the door, “So, my hanger, then?” 

I clap once and march out the door, “Green Lion hanger, ho!”

The others trail behind me as I set off towards the hanger at a quick pace, and only then does the ice seizing my veins spread into my throat. _Wow. I’m really about to tell them all about my dreams huh? All of them. When was the last time I verbally broke my dreams down, retold them? That was kind of given up for a while now, years and years, because it wasn’t about what was happening_ **_in_ ** _the dreams, it was about getting them to_ **_stop_ ** _. What dreams do I even remember? A fuckton, actually, but some details have kind of blended in over the years. I wish I had my dream journal, then I could just toss it to Pidge and say “have at it!” Oh God, this is going to be really hard for me, isn’t it? Fuck. Alright, it’s okay, I can do this. Just remove myself from it and tell them as if you’re a part of one of your stories. Great, you’re already referring to yourself in second person, you’re off to a great start._

We’re in the Green Lion’s hanger by the time I mentally steel myself by basically throwing my present consciousness as far away from the present moment as possible. I figured out how to do it on command when Shiro and I were being held by Sendak, I think it was the thing that kept me from either dying or going insane. _Which I still might have, haha, we’re all about to see, aren’t we?_ Fortunately, at the moment I’m phasing in and out of feeling the smooth white floors beneath my _bare_ feet, _I forgot shoes_ , and being on another planet entirely, so I don’t feel the need to dwell on it terribly. I learned how to dissociate back when I had to do this for therapists and stuff, you know, before we stopped caring about the dream’s contents, but I’ve never been able to basically do it on command like this. Until recently. _Wow, go me, I’ve learned something today!_

Pidge sits me down on one of her chairs and pulls up her holographic panel, typing some stuff in before it becomes a blank screen. “I’ll take notes on recurring themes here.” 

_Haha, I have notebooks full of recurring themes back in my room, but those are about Shakespeare plays. You can use them as a template if you want! Why am I thinking about Shakespeare plays right now?_

Shiro leans on the table just to my right, looking down at me with a soft look, “Whenever you’re ready.” _Oh, that’s why!_

I look around at the others as they’re clustered around the table, standing above me and looking down with expressions that I hate to see: nervous, on edge, _pitying_ . Immediately I laugh awkwardly and get up from the chair, “It’s so weird I’m sitting when no one else is. I’ll just sit here, if that’s cool, is that cool?” I jump up with pseudo permission from Pidge and sit on her table next to her holographic panel where she’s typing, and immediately I feel better. _Less like I’m being interrogated. Or less like I’m in the spotlight, I guess._

“So maybe let’s start off simple.” Lance pipes up helpfully. He’s looking at me with a weird expression, a strange mixture of apprehension, anxiety, and straight up nerves, but his voice, playful and earnest, doesn’t reflect that, “Like uh… what’s your favorite dream you’ve had?”

I give him a dirty look and a dry laugh, “The shortest one.” I turn to Pidge where she stands by her keyboard, her eyebrow raised at me. _Hmm, she’s all about science and data, I’ll give her some science and data._ “After my lion pops up, there are several ‘tests’ I guess. There would be a scenario, I’d do something then the scenario ends and moves on to the next one. Sometimes they’re around three or four, but occasionally I just get one. Max I’ve ever had is eight.” 

“In a row?” Hunk asks with wide eyes, moving to sit in the seat that I was sitting in before I’d moved. “Dude, _what?_ ”

“I know, right?” _Honestly, I’m really proud of myself at how lackadaisical I sound. Way to go, I’m out here being a Distinguished Mess._

“So, what’s one of the first ones that you can remember?” Pidge asks, raising an eyebrow over at me, “Or the first one that comes to mind?”

“Alright, let’s get to the fun part!” I jest, rubbing my hands together as I internally scream into the void. _Let’s fucking go, I guess!_ “Well, it’s important to know that they always start the same: I’m on a huge white plane, there’s nothing but white all the way around, all I can see is the shadow I cast on the floor - I know, a bit on the nose, isn’t it? - and then my lion is there. She would just kind of stare at me and then after a second she would burst into black smoke and then _whoosh_ all around me and then they’d split away and form into things, figures, people, whatever it was. And when the tests were over it was like a reset button, whatever happened to me was immediately reversed and then the stuff would become smoke again and it would start all over but with something different.” I look around at the others only briefly as I let out a puff of air under my breath, “Alright, so first one, first one… I remember having the dreams since forever, but the first one that I _actually_ remember in detail was when I was seven. I was standing in a circle and there was a big shadowy person standing over me and holding out a hand for me to give him something. I think that the smoke had given me some toy or something to hold, like a teddy bear or whatever, but I didn’t wanna give it to him so I said no. Then from behind him there were my parents flanked on either side by two other shadows, and when I said no they started… hitting them.” I’m speaking really fast, so fast I barely process the words as they pour out, “The shadow kept asking me for whatever it was that I was holding, not with words, no, they never spoke to me, not until the day before Shiro crashed, so I threw it at him to get them to stop. He took it and they did stop for a minute before they just kept going.” A heavy stone lodges in my throat as I stare at the opposite end of the room, “They didn’t stop until they… dissolved into smoke. That was one of those lucky nights I only had one test, that’s why I remember it.” 

The silence in the room is deafening. “You had that when you were _seven?_ ” Lance is looking at me with wide eyes and a heartbreaking expression. _Aww, he’s so concerned for me. That’s so sweet. Man, I need to defenestrate my consciousness a little farther so I don’t gobble my words like that again, that was too close. And that’s only one._

“And is that… typical?” Hunk asks after clearing his throat. Pidge’s staring at her holographic screen like it’s filled with code despite it being perfectly blank save for the words ‘three to four, max eight, min one.’

“Pretty much.” I murmur. 

“Can you tell us more? Were they always violent?” Pidge asks in a matter of fact questioning tone, sitting next to her like this I feel a bit like I’m at the doctor’s office. 

“Depends on your definition, I guess.” I answer, propping my foot up on the table beneath me and resting my elbow upon it, “You want me to just start spit balling some I remember out at you?”

Shiro’s expression is carved in stone, he’s watching me with his arms crossed stoicly, “Only if you’re comfortable with it.” _Oh baby, aren’t you cute._

“Sure, yeah, we’re all _friends_ here.” I jest with a wave of my hand, I start talking while staring at my moving hands like they’re figments outside of my being that I’m watching through a puppeteer’s eyes, “One dream was a shadow beating a dog to death. I shoved them to get them to stop but when I tried to help the dog it attacked me and damn near ripped my throat out. But can you believe I still love dogs? Like, a lot. Anyway, yeah that’s one, another dream test was when there were a bunch of people collected in the space, and I mean _lots._ They were starving and thirsty, they had nothing and they were crying out for help but I didn’t have anything to help them with but then this kid started gnawing on my wrist and they all got kinda excited about it and it was _horrible_ , you know, I can’t watch zombie movies anymore because of that, it scared the living fuck out of me, still does, fuck zombie movies. I fought it at first but then I realized that they were going to die without… you know. When I realized I was gonna die anyway I was like, fuck it, might as well help, they have to be extremely desperate to resort to-”

“You let them _eat_ you?” Hunk curls his nose in absolute disgust, just the phrase makes my stomach turn over until it’s basically in my chest, “Like, alive? Why would you do that?” 

I shrug and give him an incredulous look, “Well I couldn’t escape them and I was gonna die anyway, so what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t actually die, though; every test I would forget that there was more coming after, that the results were temporary. You would think I’d learned eventually but no, dumb bitch hours are twenty-four-seven for me. Alright there’s another one, but there was also this one test…” 

I recount as many as I can think of. Each one is easier to tell than the last because it’s easier to distance myself away from the experience the more practice I get. Pidge types some things down, the others sometimes asked me a follow up question but it was mostly just me talking. 

“... They kind of blur together after a while, that’s why I don’t remember many specifically. Only if they stuck out, you know? But those are basically the gist of them.” I conclude. I’m now sitting with my feet crossed under me on Pidge’s table, leaning my chin in my hand, “The last dream that I had was the night when Shiro crashed to Earth. That was the first time one of the shadows spoke to me.” 

“What’d it say?” Shiro asks. He’s standing with his arms crossed and a very troubled look on his face, one I can’t really decipher any meaning from.

“Surprisingly I don’t remember a lot about the dream itself.” I huff, shaking my head, “But I do remember the words, and the ending. The first words that the shadows ever said to me was _‘What are they to you?’_ but I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing that prompted the smoky people to say that. But I remember the ending clearly, it was really weird, I was being held up by the shadow, its claws were digging into my chest and they said _‘Voltron cannot protect you here.’_ So later on when you mentioned Voltron as being a super weapon or whatever,” I say as I gesture to Shiro, “I was pretty shook. But that’s not even the weird part, the weird part was at the end I got pulled _out_ of the dream. I’m not sure how or why, but I didn’t just wake up, something literally tugged me out of it. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

“Why would your dreams suddenly change just because Shiro crashed?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow and a perplexed expression. He’s leaning with his forearms on the table, messing with one of the pieces of equipment Pidge has on it and not looking at me. _I wonder if he’s uncomfortable being around me now, after knowing all this about me. They all now know more about how horrible I am as a person than ever before, the only topper of the cake would be to tell them about Damien and I’m avoiding talking about_ **_those_ ** _dreams._

 _Was this worth it?_  

“I don’t think it’s related to _Shiro_ per-ce,” I answer, shifting and kicking my feet out, “I think it was because my lion knew that I was going to be actually taking her final test soon. These ones beforehand were just… preparatory, I guess. The not-dream test I had on the moon was set up just like these, except it was ah… You know. Not a dream.”

Hunk straightens with wide eyes, his hands braced on the table as he speaks with a shaky, terrified breath, “You don’t think that our dreams are gonna be like that, too?” 

“I don’t think we need to take Will’s tests as instructions that our lions are gonna follow.” Pidge answers, her holographic screen is half full of writing. “There are gonna be differences.” 

“There better be.” I say with a jesting grin, hopping off of the table, “Otherwise I may have to throw hands with your lions.” I raise my fists as if case in point.

“I’d love to see that!” Lance snorts, shaking his head at me with a big grin, a smile that’s a bit too wide and bit too much teeth, “What’re you gonna do, punch their paw? They’d squash you!” 

“Okay, so with this all in mind…” Pidge interrupts, furrowing her eyebrows at her screen before she looks at the others, “Is anyone sensing a theme?” 

“Sacrifice.” Keith stands with his arms crossed, watching with a masked expression. He hasn’t moved a single muscle for the past hour or more, however long we’ve been here, like a brooding statue. _A pretty one, too. Ah, I’m still present enough to be gay, how wonderful._

“That’s kinda metal.” I joke with a crooked grin, leaning my chin in my hand as I regard him, “But can you elaborate?”

Keith looks at me with a look I can’t quite discern, his eyebrows are set and he’d look relatively pissed if his tone matched his expression, “In almost all of those you described you had to make some sort of decision that was to either take something of yours for someone else’s benefit or keep it.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense, what about the one where everything was on fire?” Lance counters, his tone is as offhanded as his gesture towards me.

“Vague.” I retort with a playful smirk. _This is so funny to watch from out here. It’s like we’re analyzing a good book, Mr. Roads would have a field day. No, he never seemed to enjoy anything enjoyable._

“He could’ve done nothing. But he didn’t.” Keith counters with furrowed eyebrows, giving Lance a surprisingly hard look.

“Whoa wait, that makes complete sense!” Pidge suddenly gasps, looking at her notes before she looks up at me, “You remember on the first day Allura said that each of our lions have certain values associated with them? She said that the White Lion values empathy, so she must have been testing to see just how far Will’s empathy could go!”

I raise an eyebrow at this and scoff, “Well the answer is not very far. Almost every time I made a choice it would bite me in the ass. Like if I were to ‘give something up’, like Keith implies, it doesn’t stop the thing I was trying to stop from happening. Like the one I just told you, when I offered myself in place of that guy in the cage, they still ended up killing him.” 

Just remembering the dream sends shivers up my spine, the biting heat of the molten cage in my hands as I watched the shadows beat the man together after I said I’d take his place if they freed him. _Sick and twisted. Seems like something the Galra would do, just for the joy of blood on their hands._

“But you still kept doing it.” Keith counters with a deep frown, “Even after so many times of it making no difference, you still would… sacrifice yourself.”

I gives Keith an incredulous look, “Like I had a choice. What else was I supposed to do? Stand by and watch?”

“Actually, yeah.” I look over at Hunk with a raised eyebrow as he returns my gaze with a sheepish expression, “You totally could have. They didn’t _force_ you to do anything, right?”

Shiro makes a slight gesture with his head towards Hunk, “Exactly. You’ve said it before; there’s always a choice, especially when it looks like there’s only one.” 

I frown, crossing my arms over my chest as I grumble under my breath, “The hell kind of choice is that, though? What kind of human being-”

“You’d be surprised.” Keith interrupts with a dark drop in his voice that makes me shudder, almost enough to bring me back down to myself. Almost. _Yeah, gotta stay out here for a while. Getting too close to dangerous emotional territory here, tread lightly._

“Maybe that’s what your lion was looking for.” Pidge’s voice grows smaller as revelation seizes her words, “Allura said your lion is picky about who her paladin is. Maybe that’s why she tested you _before_ you got your stone. And that thing you did in your tests, self sacrifice or whatever…” She makes an offhanded gesture towards Keith, who stands like a mildly pissed effigy, “That’s the value she was testing you for, and you obviously have it. So… maybe she kept testing you for so long to see if she could… break your resolve, or something.” She clears her throat at the end and her gaze shifts to her holographic screen with a dark set in her brow. 

I curl my nose a little and a hot burn in the pit of my stomach pulls my consciousness back to the here and now. _Break my resolve, huh?_ I find my gaze drifting towards the Green Lion’s hanger door and I can visualize my lion’s hanger beyond where she sits, _peacefully._

The pain of it all floods back to me, the deep disturbance and the unholy anguish from recounting the dreams just smashes into me like a pile of bricks that I had barely kept at bay until this moment and now it’s here and it’s crushing my lungs. _Look at the way the others are looking at me. They’re shocked, appalled… how are they going to see me after all of this? Mentally disturbed? Maybe it’s clicking for them, the whole, ah, so_ **_that’s_ ** _why you’re the way that you are, that’s why you’re so fucking weird, you’ve been taking tests nightly that were trying to “break your resolve” no wonder you’re such a broken-_

“So the question is what do your lions want from you?” Lance’s voice cracks into my thoughts and apparently everyone else’s, as we all snap up to look at him relatively immediately. He raises an eyebrow at Hunk and then at Pidge with his hands flat and gestured toward them, “White Lion’s all about empathy, so what’s your guys’ lions’ thing?” 

“Um,” Hunk purses his lips, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “I don’t really remember what Allura said about mine, but she did say that my heart had to be mighty, and that made me feel all warm and fuzzy.” 

“My lion values intelligence and wisdom. As she should, because, you know.” Pidge huffs with a haughty brush off of her sleeves. I think she’s doing it on purpose because she’s uncomfortable, _just like Lance, I get that._

“Seems a little late to be screening for those qualities now.” Shiro’s eyebrows are drawn together, his silvered gaze focused on the floor. 

The words are coming out without thought behind them, “You’re well past the screening point, now.” I murmur. I look up and see the others looking at me with expressions that I don’t like to see, sympathetic, _pitying,_ so I lock my eyes back down on Pidge’s shoes as I speak, “They’re not looking for those qualities in you anymore. That’s why you already have your stone, you’ve proven yourself to them.” I look back up at Pidge and Hunk, my voice feels deep and hollow and I wish I had the presence of mind to pull myself together more before I speak but _we’re well past that_ , “Now they’re seeing if you can be broken.” 

I’ve never heard silence more complete than the one that grips the Green Lion’s hanger right now, and frankly I feel a black pit in the base of my ribcage for putting it there. Pidge and Hunk’s expressions speak volumes, fear mixed with anxiety on such a magnitude I wish I hadn’t said anything at all. _Why did I say that? Is it even true?_

“Well, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.” Lance suddenly breaks the silence. His arms are crossed over his chest as he examines each of us with a look that I can only describe as analytic, which is bizarre to say the least, coming from him, “We don’t really know what’s going on, and maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. There isn’t an algorithm or whatever that will show us how to pass your lion’s test stuff… I think we’ll just have to figure it out on our own.” 

Shiro nods, pushing off from the tabletop next to me, “Lance’s right. Your lions wouldn’t be testing you now if they didn’t think that you were incapable of handling it. You’re strong, and they know it.” I look up and see Shiro’s gaze squarely on me, so I quickly drop my eyes down to the floor as my heart clambers into my throat; he continues without pause, “You just have to rely on that strength to power through and find the answer that _you_ come up with, not the one you think is supposed to be the right one.” 

The silence continues to permeate. _Alright. That’s enough melancholy. Get up, dust yourself off, this is over now, on to the next thing._ I clap my hands and hop off the counter, drawing the team’s eyes to me, “Well, that’s the team building exercise for the day! Let’s move on to some Voltron formation, shall we? Or perhaps it’s time to hit stuff with our bayards on the training deck?” I look over at Shiro with a raised eyebrow, my hands perched on my hips, “Whatcha got for us, Shiro? What’s on queue?”

Shiro’s gaze is glued to mine in a searching manner that I don’t care for at all, spitefully I look back at him with a matching expression of _look I’m fine! Everything’s fine! Literally fuck off!_ He doesn’t like that, his eyebrows furrow and his jaw sets slightly in what looks like frustration before he speaks, “I was thinking about taking a break. Give you guys time to recuperate, and to work on studying your stones.” 

“I feel like we’ve done that enough, though, haven’t we? Look at all this _studying._ ” I make a flourish with my hands towards Pidge’s holographic panel, when I glance at it all I can see are the words _sacrifice_ and _frequent_ . _I’m not thinking in the slightest anymore about the words coming out of my mouth. I should really really pull myself together more, I sound insane._

“Cut the bullshit, already.” I pause and look over at Keith with a raised eyebrow as he simply glares back at me, I wish I could just say that it looks pissed but I’ve seen Keith’s _I’m just pissed_ face and this doesn’t look like it. 

I cock an eyebrow at him, pushing off the table so I can stand on my own, “Oh? Why don’t you _make me?_ ”

“ _Okay,_ I think we should _definitely_ break for some lunch.” Hunk intervenes quite literally, appearing beside me with a hand on my shoulder. The tension in the air’s pretty thick, I feel it like a coat resting against my skin. 

“Good idea!” Lance proclaims, snapping his fingers as he lurches forward, his arms wrap around my shoulders and tug me away and out of the hanger, “Lots of hard work this morning, we definitely deserve to treat ourselves to the Castle’s own speciality goo, don’t you say?” 

This atmosphere is literally like a wet blanket on my shoulders, the others are so visibly uncomfortable that I wish I could crawl into a hole and die. _What’s worse is that it feels like my persona in place of my defenestrated consciousness is way more obvious than I thought it was, everyone in the damn room can see it. Thank you, Keith, for pointing it out when it definitely did not need to be and should not have been pointed out._

_What’s the harm in burying how much I want to scream and bash my head against the wall behind something more reasonable and pleasant? No one wants to see me acting crazy, I certainly feel like I’m literally two seconds away from having a mental breakdown so what’s the harm, there was no harm, how dare you make me put my feelings in the light? Why can’t you just let me live my lie?_

_I need to go. I need to hide and pull myself together, but if I do that then I’m just gonna fracture the team. We’re at a breaking point right now, I can see it, I feel it in the air. If I leave, then the entire team dynamic is gonna shift until we can establish a sense of normalcy again, and I can’t do that by running away._

_So I’ll put on a better face. I can do this. I can pretend everything’s fine._

_I didn’t realize it would be so much harder when people can see through my bullshit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'm trying to get through the intermittent period, I just keep getting caught up in the angst!!!  
> If I'm being honest with you, the chapters write themselves. The bit up until the squad rolls up to the BOM headquarters is unplanned save for one or two things right now, so almost all of these are me going, "Okay given the present situation and the present this and that, this character is going to react this way which will make this other character act this way which will mean that THIS character will ask THIS which will lead to this-" And that's how I realized that Will would disclose the gritty details of his dreams because /bleeelelrlrrgh/.  
> I apologize this is kinda late since last chapter, I decided to re-read the entirety of the White Paladin and Kaleidoscope and edit it before I continued writing. I'm telling myself its so I remember the recurring themes and stuff but really that's just how I procrastinate.  
> Don't worry. It just gets better from here.


	6. Campfire Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is such a thing as too much emotional vulnerability, and for someone as emotionally constipated as Will such an experience leaves him drained in almost every facet, enough that the other paladins can clearly see what's going on inside his head. Sometimes the carer needs to be cared for, and the team finds a way to give back.

After a quiet lunch we go to quietly train in our lions, followed by quietly training in Voltron and then quietly getting ready for dinner. I take an unnecessarily long time getting back in my day clothes so that I don’t have to walk with the others to dinner because  _ God  _ it is just so awful. However, by the time I get to the dining room, the discomfort left hanging in the air is all but eradicated thanks to the timeless effort of a Lance McClain, tirelessly cracking jokes, crafting puns, and all in all doing everything in his power to distract us from the morning’s events. As soon as I sit at the table his victory is visibly absolute; Shiro’s smiling, Pidge and Hunk are laughing and jovial, even Keith’s demeanor seems less gloomy. The others don’t look up when I enter but I do see some exchanging glances that I can’t read. I pretend I don’t see them and sit down to eat quietly, but I do make a better effort in putting on airs, laughing when the others laugh, retorting with an even worse pun when I feel it… but inside I feel like a broken mirror. But thankfully, it doesn’t look like it shows any longer, as the others haven’t blinkeed an eye since I’ve sat down.

“Hey, so, listen,” Pidge begins once she’s finished eating, leaning her elbows on the table as she waves a spoon in my direction, “There’s no way we can keep sleeping on your floor every night. Don’t get be wrong, it’s a whole lot of fun, but it’s just not sustainable.” 

“Yeah man, I know it was only last night but I can’t handle Lance’s snoring.” Hunk states in agreement, sheepishly smiling in his direction with an aside, “No offense.”

Lance gasps dramatically, “I do  _ not  _ snore!” 

“We are  _ so _ not getting into this right now.” Pidge interrupts, shaking her head firmly before she turns to me, “So what I’m thinking is instead we set up a buzz system; if one of us gets a test dream and we’re freaking out, we hit a button on our panels by our beds and it makes a noise to alert everyone. If you sleep through it, great, you get some good rest, but probability dictates at least one of us will hear it, and we can go to check in.”

I nod with a carefully made straight face, “Sure, if that’s what you guys want.” With a wicked smirk I add with an amused lilt, “I’m not gonna complain about getting you freeloaders off my floor.”

_ “Hey!”  _ Lance proclaims with a hand over his chest, “It was only  _ one night! _ ”

“Well, two.” Hunk counters with a thumb towards Pidge as she shovels the last of her goo into her face. 

“If that’s something that will work for you, then I think it’s a great idea.” Shiro says with a shrug, his arms crossed over his chest comfortably from his seat at the head of the table. “But only for test dream emergencies. We need to maintain a good sleep schedule, and unnecessary wakeups-”

“Are not a good idea  _ for the team _ , yeah yeah, sure thing, space dad.” Pidge huffs with a dismissive hand towards Shiro, standing up from her seat, “I’m gonna go get my mattress then set it up.”

“I’m coming, too!” Hunk says enthusiastically as he stuffs the last of his goo down the hatch as he stands, scurrying after her and down the hall.

“Well,  _ I  _ think I’ve deserved to get my chill on.” Lance says with a lazy grin, leaning back in his seat with his slender fingers laced behind his head, “Catch me at the Altean pool!”

Shiro stands with a hand on the table, passing a gaze between the three of us, “I’m going to check on Coran’s progress on the wormholer and see if Allura needs anything.”

“I’m with you.” Keith answers as he rises to follow Shiro. 

I realize then that the others, poised in the various doorways, are looking back at me expectantly. I start a little and gesture to my half full bowl of goo, “I’m gonna finish eating my dinner, I guess.”

Shiro stays put in the doorway and gives me a soft look with a parental set in his brow that’s ridden in worry, and internally I want to shout at him to just  _ leave me alone, I’m fine _ , but a little voice in my head, probably my conscience, is telling me that that won’t alleviate his concerns. So instead I merely stare him down with a purposefully blank expression, hoping he’ll just  _ drop it. _

“If you need me for anything I’ll be around.” Shiro says enigmatically, giving me a meaningful look before he flickers his gaze to Keith and heads out of the room. 

When I’m alone in the dining room I immediately plant my face in the table surface as hard as I can without concussing myself and let out the loudest sigh I’ve ever made. 

_ This has been the most emotionally exhausting day. I can’t say most exhausting day _ **_ever_ ** _ because that’s practically inviting the universe to try for a topper… but damn if it ain’t close.  _

_ I’ve never recounted my dreams to a group of people and then had them pick it apart for meaning before. I once had a therapist who did something like that but it was more along the lines of “what is your subconscious trying to tell you with these dreams” and not “what’s the recurring theme and the purpose of that theme?” I hate emotional vulnerability, and it sucks even more when you’re in a group. _

_ What’s the worst thing about it is how weird everyone’s acting around me now. They’re trying not to, I know they are, but it’s that trying - trying to act like nothing’s changed - that’s making me want to hide under my bed and never come out again. I can’t stand Lance’s pushing humor, it’s welcome but it’s also forced, I shouldn’t have made an environment that he felt the need to do that. I know Pidge and Hunk mean well, but I also know they’re really taking their mattresses out of my room because of it, thinking I need space or something, or they’re just straight up uncomfortable sleeping in the same room as me now, either or sucks. And now Shiro, with his stupid paternal fucking whatevers looking at me like I’m a beaten dog that’s shying away from nothing. Hell, even Keith, he isn’t being obvious but he couldn’t get out of here fast enough when Shiro made a beeline, and he simply could not stop looking at or glaring at me since lunch, like talking about my dreams personally offended him in some way, I haven’t a clue of how the fuck to break this all down.  _

_ Either way, I am so fucking done being around people, and more than anything I am so. Fucking. Done. Talking. About. My. Stupid. Dreams.  _

_ And that’s just telling them about the simply violent dreams. I didn’t even touch on the ones that were mentally twisted and sickening just to think about, like the ones with Damien. Specifically the ones with Damien. That’s a whole different beast that I will absolutely not think about right now.  _

_ All this has done has dug up my rage over the dreams and their purpose. I got over it pretty quickly when I got answers for the most part: it was the White Lion testing me, I wasn’t going crazy, yay. But now I’m past that and frankly, I’m fucking pissed at her. Trying to test my resolve, huh? Well how the hell did your stupid dreams prepare me for all this? For getting captured and tortured by Sendak? For facing off against an evil, ultra powered dictator, for almost drowning in the fucking  _ **_shower_ ** _ , for fucks sake, how the hell has any of this been preparatory? What was the fucking point except to fuck me up and break me as a human being, this is exactly how Damien was able to take advantage of me because I’m weak and pathetic- _

I grit my teeth and lift my head from the table, digging my nails into the palm of my right hand, even through my suit it stings, more so day by day because of the amount of times I’ve had to do this as a grounding technique.  _ No. Don’t go down that rabbit hole. We’re already in deep shit here, emotionally. We don’t need to be thinking about him or unpacking anything about it and make it worse. _

I can’t find it in me to finish my bowl of goo, so instead I pile the dishes together and head towards the kitchen to stick them in the washer. I straighten once I’m done and in the hallway, spaced out on another planet before the hall lights flicker and dim, signaling the fall of Castle induced night. I raise an eyebrow and check the time.  _ Oh. Time flies when you’re having fun overthinking everything going on inside my hellscape of a head. Pidge and Hunk have got to be done getting their stuff out of my room now, I can head back, get a shower…  _

I go through the movements. I was right, my room is left as it was before Pidge and Hunk crashed on the floor, the mattresses and the lights are gone, my bed is even back to its upright position. I strip out of my armor and head to the showers in my flight suit with a change of clothes under my arm. 

_ I woke up today determined to get answers, but all I’ve gotten is more questions and more dead ends. I doubt that my dream recount to Pidge and Hunk even helped all that much. We went through all that for nothing, I  _ **_put them_ ** _ through that for nothing. I was so sure that I was helping, I wanted to help them get to a place they could pass their lions’ tests or whatever… but did I really? Or did I just freak them out, thinking they were next by showing them a part of me that no one has seen and should never have been revealed… the me that’s undeniably fucked up beyond belief, the idiot who throws himself into stupid situations and always making the wrong decisions that hurt everyone. They’re probably scared to be around me when it comes down to it, if I’m needed to make a life or death decision, now they know that I’m always going to choose wrong-  _

I stand under the blistering water of the shower and breath hard through my nose, trying to pull myself back into the present.  _ I’m getting sucked down again. These thoughts aren’t productive. These thoughts aren’t productive. I need to think about something else. I need to think about something else. I need to think about something else. _

I sing under my breath to distract myself, put my mind on a melody rather than my guilt and barely contained panic, the melody and words come to my head suddenly and go straight out my tongue without restraint,

_ “You must think that I’m stupid. _ _   
_ _ You must think that I’m a fool. _ _   
_ _ You must think that I’m new to this, _ _   
_ __ But I have seen this all before.” 

I frown and tug myself further into the melody, internally cursing myself for thinking of such a damn sad song for the moment but fuck it. A bit heavy handed and whatnot but who gives a fuck. I’ll soak in my dumb melancholy,  _ who’ll it hurt _ ? 

_ “I’m never gonna let you close to me, _ _   
_ _ Even when you mean the most to me, _ _   
_ _ ‘Cause every time I open it up it hurts. _ _   
_ _ So I’m never gonna get too close to you, _ _   
_ _ Even when I mean the most to you, _ _   
_ __ In case you go and leave me in the dirt.

_ But every time you hurt me the less that I cry, _ _   
_ _ And every time you leave me the quicker these tears dry, _ _   
_ _ And every time you walk out the less I love you. _ _   
_ _ Baby, we don’t stand a chance, _ _   
_ _ It’s sad but it’s true, _ _   
_ __ I’m way too good at goodbyes.” 

I hum softly to myself until I suddenly hear a noise out in the hallway outside of the bathroom. Immediately my heart leaps into my throat, without thinking I reach out and get in the doorway of the shower  _ in case it were to close _ . All is silent save for the pounding of the water against the floor, my blood pressure is spiking in terror, but there’s no signs of life in the first room, all is silent out in the hallway.  _ Probably just one of the Altean mice or something.  _

_ But that’s enough time in the shower.  _

I shut the water off and grab a towel, bolting to the front room at the speed of light and yanking on my clothes as fast as possible.  _ Fuck Altean shower doors being water tight. Fuck that I’m afraid of being in the damn thing, fuck all of this bullshit. Fuck being afraid. I hate it. I fucking hate it. I shouldn’t be afraid of something so stupid, like talking about some dumb, fake dreams or taking a fucking shower for crying out loud, what is wrong with me- _

When I get back to my room I collapse on my bed, staring up at the ceiling with my towel still around my neck. My hair’s mostly dry save the front, the water’s stuck to my forehead and leaving a chill that I feel deep in my bones. 

_ I’m tired. I want to sleep. But I know damn well that as soon as I get comfortable, my entire being is gonna be like “Hey, let’s talk about how the fuck today went! Wasn’t that hell? Let’s overthink every damn second of it and ingrain it in our memory forever to dwell upon! Doesn’t that sound like fun?!”  _

_ No it does not.  _ I sit up and glare around my dimly lit room for a distraction.  _ Something to either get these thoughts out or cover them up. _ My gaze hitches on the notebook on my bookshelf so I follow my gut, grabbing it and the pen in the spiral as I turn to the last page of writing. I start to scrawl everything and nothing, just getting the thoughts out of my head and somewhere else,  _ anywhere  _ else. 

_ ‘I talked to the others about my dreams today, kinda at Pidge’s behest. It was supposed to provide guidance for her and Hunk because their lions have decided to test them, just like how my lion did… But instead I think all I did was disturb everyone. Wig them out. Hell, I’m so fucking wigged right now that I don’t blame them, I don’t wanna be in the same room as me either. How are they supposed to act around me now? I think that’s the question they’re asking themselves right now as I write. I’ve never told anyone about them this in depth before, no one that wasn’t my parents or my therapist, and this is exactly why. I never should’ve let them in. I feel trapped in a constant cycle in my head about everything, one thing happens and I have to mull over it for a thousand years until I find something else to hyperfixate on, I wish I could just… not. Why can’t I just turn my brain off?’  _

_ ‘I was in the shower and I heard something outside of the room and immediately panicked, I threw myself into the doorway just in case it closed. I can’t believe I’m still scared to be in the stupid shower, I’m so  _ _ tired _ _ of being scared. I shouldn’t be scared as often as I am, but here I am, scared. Constantly. Scared. I don’t even know of what anymore. I think it’s myself. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m just so scared.’  _ My pen stalls when the ink begins to smear, and I realize it’s because my hands are shaking. I take a shallow breath and glare at the curved words and write the last sentence with care and precision. 

_ ‘This isn’t helping.’ _

With a dark frown I shut the notebook in a flurry, shoving it back in its place on the shelf.  _ I feel trapped in this hellscape of a skull. I need to stop thinking. I need something else. What else?  _

My gaze drifts back around the room and hitches on my guitar made on Olkarion resting in the corner by the door, its surface giving off a dull sheen in the darkened room.  _ There we go.  _

Purely on instinct, I pick it up and head out into the hallway, away from our rooms.  _ I don’t want to wake anyone up with it, so I’m taking this to the bridge. I like the bridge, it’s quiet, and more importantly it shows me the empty space lying before us as we travel across the cosmos. It’s a good reminder that the world is bigger than what’s rattling around in my head because out there, in the galaxy, there are people that are looking to us as a symbol of hope. I can’t get caught up in my bullshit selfishness when looking out at the grand expanse of the universe that’s depending on us.  _

When I walk onto the thankfully empty bridge I immediately plop down at the edge of Allura’s circle, resting my feet on the top of Shiro’s seat and looking out the glass at the space beyond. There are thousands of stars, speckling the glass like silver freckles on the dark black skin of the universe, but I see no nebulas, no celestial bodies… just a whole lot of nothing. Nothing and everything.

I pluck the strings and let my fingers guide the notes that drive on. I steer away from the minor chords, specifically the deep sadness that tends to ache from the notes, and hoping that the major notes will guide me towards more hopeful songs, if not happy ones.  _ Come on, come on, give me something that speaks to me. _ I tap my foot to a random beat and strum chords at random times and random intonations, searching for a song when I feel the rightness ring in the air; it’s like a tremor through my being when I know I’ve found what I’m looking for, my fingers know better than me what I need and it’s the greatest high I can get. I carry the sound of the rapidly changing notes, closing my eyes as it hums through my blood; it feels right, it feels  _ so  _ right it brings an instant smile to my face,  _ God I’ve missed music so much _ . The words of the old song float across my mind, and idly I wonder if it’s safe for me to sing. I reach my foot down and touch Shiro’s holographic panel, damn near falling off Allura’s circle to do it, but I can see the time once my toes grace the glossy surface, it’s just after nine.  _ Everyone’s bound to getting ready to sleep now. I think I’m good, unless Coran’s till kicking around somewhere… but I doubt he’ll be leaving the teludav chamber.  _

I smile with hope and let the song out like an enthusiastic horse racing through the grass, ready to be in the field after being cooped up in the stable all day. 

_ “Father, will you forgive me for my sins? _ _   
_ _ Father, if there’s a heaven let me in. _ _   
_ _ I don’t know where to go if I should die, _ _   
_ __ We haven’t been on speaking terms for so long, you and I.

_ I was a freak since seven years old, _ _   
_ _ Been cast away, I felt the cold, _ _   
_ __ Coming over me.

_ For every love I had to hide, _ _   
_ _ And every tear I ever cried…  _ _   
_ _ I’m down on my knees,  _ _   
_ _ I’m begging you please, _ _   
_ _ Is there no place in heaven for someone like me? _ _   
_ _ Won’t you open the door, and try me once more? _ _   
_ _ ‘Cause there’s no place in heaven for someone like me. _ _   
_ __ ‘Cause there’s no place in heaven.”

The song has a wonderful beat that flows like a pounding waterfall, a real foot tapper, but the words are heart wrenching, purposefully juxtaposing like fire and ice. My favorite songs that I learned to play first were all just like this, especially focused on the twenty first century. It was around that time when artists were able to come out fully as gay, queer, trans, etc., and their music began to reflect it, not all of my favorites are like that but this one is. This song I loved because it spoke volumes of the heartache the gays experienced at the time, being unaccepted and alone…  _ I’m not alone, there’s always someone hurting more than I… _ it grounds me. That’s why this was one of the first songs I learned. But I love songs like this in particular because I feel that it is my duty for their message to continue, for the heartache to permeate so that history never repeats itself.  _ Big thing to do just by singing some pop artist’s sad song, but it’s something. _

_ “In between, a solution can be found, _ _   
_ _ How long will I swim before I drown? _ _   
_ _ And in between those words we dare not say, _ _   
_ __ Do you think that you can learn to love me anyway?

_ I was a freak since seven years old, _ _   
_ _ Been cast away, I felt the cold, _ _   
_ _ Coming over me. _ _   
_ _ For every love I had to hide, _ _   
_ _ And every tear I ever cried…  _ _   
_ _ I’m down on my knees,  _ _   
_ _ I’m begging you please, _ _   
_ _ Is there no place in heaven for someone like me? _ _   
_ _ Won’t you open the door, and try me once more? _ _   
_ __ ‘Cause there’s no place in heaven for someone like me.

_ Oh, I’m down on my knees,  _ _   
_ _ I’m begging you please, _ _   
_ _ Is there’s no place in heaven for someone like me? _ _   
_ __ ‘Cause there’s no place in heaven.” 

I pause the keys when the song demands and close my eyes tightly, rapping my knuckles on the wood as the general tone of the song take a dark fall away from the lighter chorus, I dive in with it.

_ “Father, won’t you forgive me for my sins? _ _   
_ _ Father, if there’s a heaven let me in. _ _   
_ _ Father, is there anyway to see _ _   
_ __ If there’s room in heaven left for me?”

I feel the surge of the song pulsing through my fingers as I pluck the notes and drive them together, I find myself swaying in time as well as tapping my foot against the back of Shiro’s chair. It’s like the emotion of the song is a seed deep in my chest that blossoms and blooms fully when the music accompanies it, despite the ache I cannot deny how beautiful it sounds, how it  _ feels _ .

_ “I’m down on my knees, _ _   
_ _ I’m begging you, please, _ _   
_ _ Is there no place in heaven for someone like me? _ _   
_ _ Won’t you open the door and try me once more? _ _   
_ _ ‘Cause there’s no place in heaven for someone like me. _ _   
_ _ Oh, I’m down on my knees, _ _   
_ _ I’m begging you, please _ _   
_ _ There’s no place in heaven for someone like me. _ _   
_ _ There’s no place in heaven… _ _   
_ __ Left for me.”

I start when I hear footsteps behind me, barely audible above the constant white noise of the Castle’s thrusters blasting us through space and the song under my fingertips. My hands stall on the frets and I look over my shoulder with wide eyes as a figure appears behind me from the bridge doorway.

“Er- Shiro!” I stammer, clenching my hand on the guitar neck as he approaches. He pauses by where Allura stands to command the ship, giving me an expression I can’t read from this angle, I stumble in search for words, “I uh… How long have you been um… standing there?” 

“Just a minute.” He answers in a low rumble. He’s in pajamas which is the weirdest sight to see, he’s got a black shirt with these fuzzy, soft looking pants that have silver constellations laced within the material in a really cool manner, but when I usually ever see Shiro he’s either in his Voltron suit or in those black clothes that may as well be Garrison issued, him in pajamas is bizarre to say the least. 

He tilts his head at me and raises an eyebrow, “Mind if I join you?” 

“Go ahead.” I practically squeak, it’s frankly embarrassing.  _ Oh man, I was not emotionally ready for this. I feel like he just caught me literally dumping out my emotions into the sink like pouring water down a drain.  _ He sits down beside me, one foot propped on Allura’s circle beside him and the other hanging over the edge. He leans an elbow on his knee and looks out the glass at the sky beyond, his profile is surprisingly at peace.  _ What’s he doing up still? _

“Can’t go to sleep yet?” He asks quietly after a moment, his voice rumbles deep like the tremble of the Castle’s thrusters as he examines the stars. 

I nod slightly, shifting to cross my legs under me to better support my guitar, resting my arm on the body and then setting my chin on it. “Just wanted to clear my head. It’s easy to do here, especially at night.” I turn and face the glass, the silence settling over me a sense of calm like sitting by a fireplace on a cold day.  _ It’s hard to be too stressed when in such a quiet space. _

It’s broken by Shiro letting out a long, soft breath, like he was meditating. “It’s been a long day for you, huh?” He utters after a moment, his gaze flickering down briefly to regard Coran’s station at the front, just in front of his own. 

Immediately I can’t help but bristle, glaring down at my guitar’s neck, “Don’t bother trying to glean any more emotional vulnerability from me. There’s nothing left to say, and the last thing I wanna do is unpack anything further.” 

“Alright.” I see Shiro shrug in my peripheral, his face kept towards the glass, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” 

For some reason this fills me with absolute relief, it immediately relaxes the tension in my shoulders and I release the bit of pent up breath I had stored. I let my fingertips slide along the strings, the familiar ache is beginning to form but it’s growing less intense as my callouses are starting to return from their hiatus. 

“Playing music helps you when you’re stressed, doesn’t it?” Shiro starts again. When I turn to look at him he continues to stare out the glass like a kid staring up the grand height of a skyscraper, “That’s what you were doing just now.” It isn’t a question. 

“Yeah.” I murmur softly in response, chewing on my lip for a moment before I speak, “How did you know?”

Shiro speaks with a twinkle in his eye, glancing over at me with a quirked eyebrow, “Call it a hunch.” I shake my head at him with a soft laugh under my breath, internally wondering how this bit of information found its way to him. After a moment of silence he straightens in his seat and shifts to lean his prosthetic arm on his knee, “If it helps, then you should keep playing.” He flickers his gaze down to the strings in my lap as if case in point. 

I can’t help it, I cock an eyebrow and smirk, “Is that your way of asking me to play you a song?”

Shiro defly shakes his head. He peers at me with a look that’s layered in meaning that I can’t decipher in the slightest, not that I could even attempt to with his stormy gaze digging into mine, then he says, “No, don’t perform on my account.” He looks away, tilting his chin up to stare at the stars before us, “Pretend I’m not here.”

I scoff quietly under my breath, looking down at the strings and then at my fingertips gracing the neck, “As if I could.” 

He’s silent for a beat before he shifts, planting his foot more firmly in the ground in a move to stand, “I can leave.” 

Quickly I turn and shake my head at him just as he starts to rise, “No, no, don’t.” He raises an eyebrow but halts as he glances over at me and my tongue stalls in my mouth. After a moment I’m able to clear my throat, shifting my legs beneath me to a more comfortable position, “I just… don’t want to disturb your uh… quiet.” 

“You’re not, I promise.” He answers simply as he relaxes back down in his seat, shrugging, “If it’s something you enjoy doing then you should do it. Besides, I think you play pretty well.” He pauses after a moment and glances over at me with a pensive expression before adding, “But do whatever suits you.” 

I watch him until he looks away, peering back up at the glass with a relaxed lean of his shoulders on his hands behind him. I tilt my head back down to the strings, thinking for a moment about what I want to play,  _ what’s something Shiro would know or like…  _ I quickly shake my head slightly to myself.  _ No no, don’t think about it. Do just as before… Mess around, do what pleases you until something feels right.  _

I strum quietly, picking and stopping and moving with the music as it suits itself. I love how the notes sound on the bridge, the space is perfect for it; it’s not echoing or airy, but not suppressive or stifling, it carries, but not excessively. I close my eyes and follow where the chords take me, before long it really does feel like I’m alone on the bridge; it’s just me and the music floating across my thoughts like the flow of a gentle river. 

When I’m playing it feels like two pieces of wood sliding together, not grating nor rough or even displaced, it’s a natural rhythm. But when I find the song,  _ that perfect  _ song, it’s like suddenly finding the slot where the two pieces slide together perfectly, it wasn’t a bad feeling or anything like it before, but finding where the music fits with my current emotional state is like Happy in terms of instant relief. There’s a similar feeling when you’re singing in a choir; when you’re supposed to be on the same note and you aren’t, the air vibrates quite literally and it doesn’t seem wrong or off… but when you all come together with the exact same note and intonation of it it’s like one unified voice coming together, and that’s exactly what it feels like when I find what I’m musically looking for. That’s why I learned song after song after song back on Earth, why I listened to music damn near every day looking for the next one. I find myself humming, it comes like second nature, as innate as breathing when you resurface from beneath the waves. 

After several minutes of playing I huff when the sharp feeling of my fingertips against the strings prickle, they’re still not well acquainted with the bite. I curl my nose and shake out my hand, stopping to rub the tips of my fingers to soothe the sting. 

“What was that song you were playing before?” I damn near jump out of my skin when I hear Shiro speaking next to me.  _ Fuck. I totally forgot he was here.  _ I look over at him with a startled look and see he’s just looking at me with an even gaze, his hands are behind him as he’s leaning back, like he’s a cat basking in the light of the Balmeran crystal.

“I… Sorry what?” I ask in confusion and mental disarray, looking over at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“That song earlier. When I came in.” He repeats, mirroring my expression.

“...  _ No Place in Heaven _ ?” I ask with a cautious note, “Were you listening?”

Shiro nods with a slight, sheepish smile, his gaze flickering aside briefly for a moment. “Just for a few minutes. I didn’t want to come barging in while you were in your element…” He pauses before he peers at me with a curious expression, “I’ve never heard it before.” 

I can’t help but snicker, “I’d be shocked if you did. Most songs I know are old age stuff. Like,  _ really  _ old age stuff. That song is one of the first I learned…” I pause, chewing on my lip for a moment as I regard the strings to avoid Shiro’s digging gaze, “It’s supposed to be on piano, but every song’s got notes, so any instrument that makes chords can play it… some just sound better than others.” I smile a little sheepishly in his direction.  _ Oh man, what I would do for a keyboard… I could play three times the music on that thing, all those layering capabilities and whatnot…  _

“... It sounded kinda… cheerful.” He mutters, his eyebrows drawn together in a pensive frown, “But then I heard the words and it wasn’t.” 

I watch him with a growing smirk. “Yeah. That’s the point of the song.” I find a slight smile growing from the smirk as I move to speak with my hands, “It starts with these minor notes mixed with majors that makes it sounds hopeful if a bit bitter, growing more and more hopeful as it goes on until you reach the end. That’s when the minors return, but they are sparsely played so the words shine through more, kind of as an admission of defeat… Like he’s banging on the pearly gates only to realize his cries are going unanswered.” I’m speaking animately with my hands, they feel like they’re about to up and dance off of my skeleton they’re as ecstatic as I feel. I look over at Shiro with an enthusiastic light in my eyes, he’s looking at me with a curious, muted expression yet slightly surprised, even startled. I clear my throat and look away, “Sorry. Yikes, didn’t mean to bore you with music theory nonsense-”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Shiro answers quickly. I watch him lean his chin on his knee, his prosthetic held against his chest as he looks up and out the glass, “So, what’s it about?” 

I raise an eyebrow at him incredulously and am about to say  _ isn’t it obvious  _ before I realize that not everyone’s as obsessed with music as I am, so it may just not be. I twist a bit in my seat to face him a bit more as I speak, “Well… at the turn of the millennia there was a big wave of a new thematic subgenre of music about people coming out as LGBTQ+, which was a big deal because it was that time when being gay was just starting to be an accepted thing… but just barely.” I look down at the strings as I continue, “A bunch of musicians were using music to come out, to celebrate their identity, but for many they wrote songs that… lament that they are not accepted in society because of who they are. Religious institutions were kind of the head of the gay bigotry at the time, like, they were, mostly, really  _ really  _ against gay people, and so a lot of homophobes would use religion as their reasoning behind depersonifying the gays, ‘ _ because God said Adam and Eve’ _ , stuff like that.” Shiro watches me with a shrouded gaze and a raised eyebrow, his eyes flicker back and forth between mine and it’s really hard to focus because of it, yet somehow I manage to blurt out the words, “So, because of this, there grew a new subgenre of queer songs, specifically ones relating to the lack of acceptance queer artists were facing, and they would often be expressed through that religious lens. That song I played earlier is by an artist called MIKA; he was raised Catholic, which was like,  _ the  _ crown king of the bigots, so for him the song’s a plea for there to be no divorce between his identity and his religion.” I can’t help but smile, waving my hands in excitement as I speak, “My favorite part is the chorus when it starts out with the question,  _ ‘is there no place in heaven for someone like me?’ _ and then the next one it’s a statement,  _ ‘there IS no place in heaven’ _ , he’s asking the question and then answering it, it shows the conflict he’s having in himself as well as the metaphorical conversation he’s having with God, you know?” I glance over at Shiro and clear my throat, looking down at the body of my guitar sheepishly once I’ve finished my spiel, “Erm… Sorry, that was a really long winded answer.”

Shiro shrugs slightly, wrapping an arm loosely around his knee, “It’s alright. I don’t think it would’ve made sense to me without the context. That really makes it kind of… deeper, than I thought it was.” 

I allow a slight smile. “That’s the beauty of it. When you listen to a song, a  _ really good  _ song, you hear something more than just the words and feel something more than just what the notes lead you to feel. When you can extract more than just the basic meaning from it, applying it to yourself or to others or to the world at large… that’s the point where you’ve found the true soul of music, nestled in the notes.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow, watching me closely as I speak before he murmurs, “So why was that the song you chose?” 

I blink at him and laugh a little self consciously, “Honestly, I don’t really  _ choose  _ what I play. I just kinda… fiddle around with the notes until I accidentally stumble across a song I know and it resonates with some meaning for me based on how I’m feeling, then I just kinda go with it from there.”

Shiro leans backward and rests his hands behind him, looking out the glass as he speaks, “Then what was the meaning that song gave you, based on how you’re feeling?”

I find myself staring for a moment, watching him looking out at the night sky beneath the bathed light of the Balmeran crystal overhead.  _ I can never deny that Shiro’s a beautiful person. I mean, for crying out loud, the man’s got the jawline of a Greek god. _ “It’s a reminder of perspective.” I murmur in response, trailing my fingertips across the strings as the ache in them begins to lessen, “Everyone hurts, in one way or another. It helps ground me in realizing that the struggles I encounter in my own head are not the only struggles to contend with, it helps me remember not to be selfish and wallow in my own melancholy when I could be helping others with problems greater than mine, or even greater than me.”

Shiro hums in response, tilting his head to the side with a brief glance in my direction, “That’s rather admirable and mature of you. But you know…” Shiro pauses, turning to look at me with a serious expression, “Stuff like that is relative. Even if you think your problems are not as bad compared to others, it doesn’t mean that your problems aren’t still painful. They are problems, which makes them valid. It’s not a competition, after all.”

I blink at him in surprise before letting out a low whistle, “Thank you, space dad.” 

Shiro visibly flushes, his gaze sliding to the ground with a sheepish shake of his head, “I’m still not quite sure what to do with that nickname. You and Pidge are a deadly tag team.” 

I snicker and shrug with a broad grin, “Hey, come on, tell me it’s not accurate.”

Shiro chuckles with a brilliant flash of teeth, “I guess, since I’m the  _ old man  _ here…” 

I roll my eyes and cut him off with a wave of my hand, “Oh come on, who the hell’s calling you old? What’re you, thirty? Thirty-seven max.”

Shiro glances over at me, the soft blue light in his steely gaze makes him look like he’s contemplating his words before he answers, “... Twenty-four, actually.” 

I blink in surprise, staring at him for a solid minute, “... Seriously?” 

Shiro waves at me dismissively, his ears are beginning to turn red, “Yeah, Keith helped me take into account my time with the Galra, filled in some of the gaps.”

I stall, my mouth hanging open for a solid minute, “Wait a minute, so… you were sent up as the mission pilot for Kerberos, the furthest distance mankind has ever gone…  _ when you were twenty-two? _ ”  _ That’s the same age as a college grad. _

Shiro shrugs a bit, pulling his feet up to Allura’s circle and loosely wrapping his arms around his knees, “Yeah. I had to lobby Commander Iverson a lot to get him to let me go, but…” He trails off with another shrug, like that’s  _ fucking nothing. _

“ _ Damn _ , Shiro. That’s just… unreal. Holy fuck. I had no idea…” I turn and face him with a sudden whip of my head, twisting to set my guitar down beside, “Hold on, were you still technically a cadet, then?”

Shiro shakes his head with a scoff, “Oh, no, not at all. I’d gotten promoted to senior officer when I was nineteen, officer when I was sixteen.” 

I don’t think my jaw could be any slacker.  _ “Shiro. _ ” I murmur in awe,  _ “What the fuck?” _ He blinks at me with wide eyes before I practically burst, “That’s  _ amazing! _ I never knew, how the- how the fuck do you even- officer at  _ sixteen? _ My God, you really are the Garrison’s poster child, I didn’t think that was even possible! How did you do it?”

Shiro’s face is dusted in rose as he looks down at his feet, “Mix of luck and hard work, and then  _ lots _ of help from others along the way.” He smiles a little to himself, tilting his head to the side, “I never would’ve gotten far without Commander Iverson and Lieutenant Sanda… the whole of the Galaxy Garrison was actually kind of on my side to work my way up the ranks, come to think of it.” He chuckles a little, his head tilted to the side as his smile slightly falls, “And I never would’ve gotten the opportunity if it weren’t my parents.”

I tilt my head to the side, now facing Shiro fully, “You’ve never talked about your family, before.” Internally I’m chanting _Shiro lore, Shiro lore, Shiro lore_ ; I want to say _I don’t remember anyone but Adam at the funeral_ , but after my big blunder with Keith about his family I know better than to do _that_ now. 

Shiro pauses, turning a bit so he’s facing me more as well before he begins slowly, carefully selecting his words, “... My father moved us to the United States just after I was born because he wanted for us to have a better life than what we had in Japan. From what my mother told me, it wasn’t exactly… the greatest situation.” He pauses, his gaze lifting to look up and out the glass again, the Balmeran crystal’s light turns the silver shock of hair in the front a light turquoise, “But they truly believed that we could have the most opportunities to grow in the US.”

I watch him for a long moment, wrapping my arms around my knees, “What happened to them?” 

Shiro turns and faces me, his expression is surprisingly soft, “My father died in an accident when I was five, before I really knew him. My mother has been the only family I’d ever really had for a long time until…” He pauses, his gaze flickering off to the side and despite the lack of change in his expression his voice is smaller, “She died right as I was to go to the Garrison when I was thirteen.” 

My gaze falls to my knees before I shift to be a little closer to him, murmuring, “I’m sorry, Shiro.”

He nods a little in appreciation, his gaze lingers on his seat in the front as he rests his elbow on his knee, “It was her time to go.” He pauses, a slight smile stretching across his features, “She was the one who really pushed me to do my best. She told me every day that she ‘saw a spark in me’, and that she had ‘transformed herself into a fan to help me burst into the flames I was destined to be’.” 

I raise an eyebrow and allow a small smile as well, “That’s… incredibly poetic.” 

“That’s why I remember it. She always was a romantic like that.” Shiro murmurs in response. He raises his eyes to meet mine, his composure relaxed despite sitting on the floor of the bridge, “Without her I don’t think I would’ve gotten far.” 

He remains quiet for a time, his gaze listing to the side with a pensive light shrouded across his features. I offer him a smile, “She sounded like a wonderful woman. She was lucky to have you as a son.” 

Shiro doesn’t reply. He merely smiles. 

We’re silent for a long time, but not uncomfortably so. I turn back forward and lift my guitar back up into my lap when another question suddenly crosses my mind; I turn towards Shiro and break the white noise of the Castle’s hum, “Do you have any siblings?”

Shiro shakes his head before raising an eyebrow at me, “You?”

I shake my head as well, “With me eternally tormenting my parents every night with my nightmares, the last thing they had time for was to think about having another kid.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

I brush it off with a grin, “Hey, it’s whatever. I don’t need siblings. Based on what others have said they seem like nothing but annoyances anyway.” 

Shiro chuckles under his breath and shifts out of my peripheral, “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.”

I raise an eyebrow at Shiro, unable to keep the smirk from my expression, “Reason I’m asking is ‘cause I’m  _ positive  _ you and Keith have got to be related in some way. You’re crazy similar.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow in surprise, “What makes you say that?” 

“Well,” I turn towards him, counting out the reasons on my fingers, “One, the whole  _ mission before all else  _ mentality is totally apparent in both of you. Two, you do this thing with your eyebrows that’s super… expressive, I can’t really explain it but the way you guys use them in your expressions are so similar. Three, the broody demeanor.” I shrug a bit at Shiro with a slight aside, “Keith’s a hell of a lot more tangible than yours, though. You’re like, conversationally broody, like you’re more reserved, I guess. Keith’s just downright, like,” I make a face to try and send the point home, a slight pout with my arms crossed as I attempt to use the bit of hair in my face to cast a shadow across my visage like Keith’s bangs do. 

Shiro laughs, a bright smile across his features, “I’ve never gotten that before.”

I chuckle, “Hey, well there you go. There’s a first time for everything.” I smile a bit to myself, a soft sigh escaping my lips, “He’s really lucky that he had someone like you to look up to.”

Shiro doesn’t respond, he merely looks down at his prosthetic arm nestled in his lap. 

My body hits the switch on wherever the broken door that houses my melatonin is, as I grow more and more tired as time drags on in our comfortable silence. I shift until I’m standing upright, stretching with my arms in the air with a yawn as I turn and face Shiro, “I’ve enjoyed talking with you, Shiro. Thank you for sharing with me your life story.” 

Shiro snorts and laughs outright, standing up as well as he faces me with a joking grin, “Yeah, sure, no problem.” 

I touch his shoulder as I sling my guitar onto my back, moving towards the doorway, “I think my head’s allowing me to go to sleep now, so I’m gonna take the opportunity before it changes its mind.”

Shiro nods in agreement, “Mine, too.” 

As we head back towards the residential hall I turn towards Shiro and speak in an undertone, “You know, I meant to ask… What’re you doing up?” 

“Looking for you.” Shiro answered simply, glancing down at me with a parental gaze, “I was worried about you, and wanted to check that you were doing okay.” 

I let out a tired sigh, rubbing my forearms as we walk. For a moment I don’t say anything, I don’t  _ want  _ to say anything but my heart gets the better of my tongue and quiet words start to pour out into the blackened hall, “I’m just worried that I told everyone all that shit for nothing, you know?” I swallow on the lump in my throat as it begins to form before I lose the minimal courage I’d somehow accumulated, “I know my dreams are horrible. I never shared them with anyone before because of it, but I told myself this time that it was for a greater good, that y’all  _ asked  _ for me to share because it would help Pidge and Hunk with their dreams… but I’m not sure if they actually did or not, or just if it just made you all have to feel sorry for me.” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow at me, “You think we shouldn’t feel sorry about you having those… dreams for so long?” His voice barely hitches on the word  _ dreams _ like he was going to say something else but chose otherwise at the last second. 

I look down at the shadowed floor, nothing but the strips of light blue on the sides of the white walls to see by as we go. “I’ve told myself my whole life that my dreams aren’t the things that fucked me up, but they were symptoms to how  _ I’m _ fucked up, as a person. Correlation not being causation stuff like that. I don’t know I… I never shared them before because I’ve always been worried that people hearing about my dreams, especially the  _ choices  _ I made in those dreams… they’d change how I’d be seen.” I frown and spit out the words before I can think the better of them, “I don’t want you guys to think you can’t trust me because I made so many wrong decisions in the past.” 

Shiro pauses in the hallway so I stop as well, turning and looking up at him without much thought save to hide all emotion. His face is largely shadowed in the hall but I can still see his soft expression and the glint of his eyes as he suddenly speaks in a quiet tone, “Will, telling us about this big part of your life hasn’t made us lose trust in you. It speaks volumes of you that you were willing to talk to us about it in order to help Pidge and Hunk. But more than that…” I blink when I feel his hand grasp my shoulder, warm and welcome through the fabric of my shirt, “You’re… very closeted, emotionally. Which is okay, that’s not a bad thing, it’s a part of who you are… but I know I speak for all of us when I say that we feel honored that you allowed us in on such a rough part of your past despite it being hard for you to do it.” 

I blink stupidly for at least a solid minute trying to digest his words before I internally melt. Some water dam deep in my chest bursts and I feel hot tears burning in my eyes and I have to swallow on salt to suppress it, I speak in a whisper so that my voice doesn’t betray my breach in emotion, “... Thank you, Shiro. That… that means a lot.” 

Shiro’s thumb rubs circles on my shoulder in a soothing manner before he rumbles, “This may just be the uh…  _ space dad  _ in me talking but… seems like you might need a hug.”

“God _ damnit _ Shiro.” I swear as I lunge forward, wrapping my arms around him tightly and burying my face in his shoulder. I grumble as an afterthought, “I knew you liked the nickname.”

Shiro laughs softly under his breath as he hugs me back. He doesn’t say anything for several seconds before he adds in a quiet tone, “It’s not the worst one I’ve ever gotten. Or what I could’ve had, considering the team’s…  _ antics _ .”

I snort and pull away, suddenly realizing based on the cool trails on my face that I totally just cried into his shirt. I wipe my eyes as discretely as I can, scoffing, “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet, Shiro. It’s only been two weeks, just wait, now that we have a few days to breathe before we get to the Blade of Marmora’s base, who  _ knows  _ what kind of  _ ‘antics’ _ we’ll get into.” 

We turn down the hall for our rooms, and as I head towards my room I turn my head to tell Shiro goodnight only for him to plant his hand on my shoulder and continue to guide me down the hall. I raise an eyebrow, “Uh, where are we going?”

Shiro smiles secretively with a _mischievous?_ _Oh yes, that is most certainly a mischievous_ look, “We’ve already got some _antics_ planned on where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”

I raise an eyebrow with a completely lost expression, “We?”

Shiro mutely nods but otherwise doesn’t provide any more context clues, guiding me down the hall. We take a turn and then at a doorway I’ve never entered before Shiro raps his knuckles briskly.

Inside I immediately hear a shriek, followed by a loud  _ thump _ . As Shiro opens the door, I’m greeted with one of the stranger sights I’ve seen. 

The room is like a smaller version of the lounge by our hangers, with the sunken couches in a semi circle in the middle, except this one has been completely overhauled in appearance. The floor around the couches are covered in  _ so fucking many  _ blue and white blankets that it looks like it snowed, thrown pillows all around the room like shrapnel in light of a recent fight, and around the couches are Hunk’s little yellow lights he got from Olkarion, circling the couches like an outline where the blankets end and the cushions begin. In the middle, gathered around the couches, is almost the entire ship: Pidge, Hunk, Lance, Keith, even Allura is here, much to my shock, but no sign of Coran. They’re all in pajamas, or at least what seem to be pajamas, and as soon as the door all the way slides open I’m smacked directly in the face with a pillow. 

“Ha!” Lance cries in victory, pumping his fist in the air, “How’s  _ that  _ for aim,  _ Mullet? _ ”

I gather my senses enough to begin to question the scene before me. “What is all this?” I ask, raising an eyebrow over my shoulder at Shiro where he stands behind me. 

He smiles, his arms crossed comfortably over his chest, “Well the sleepover you had seemed like a great bonding exercise, so we thought-”

_ “Team slumber party!” _ Hunk proclaims from below, slinging a pillow upward at the ceiling; he’s on his back in his orange pajamas on the circular floor between the circular couch, when his arms fall he pouts in defeat right as the pillow falls back down and lands directly on his face. I choke down a laugh before step into the room cautiously, looking around with a raised eyebrow as I step over the shrewn blankets, “Jesus, are there enough blankets in here?”

Allura is sitting with her legs crossed on the top of the couch opposite of the door. She’s in a long, pale blue robe with a soft pink shawl thrown over her shoulders and those little slippers she was wearing when we spent time together after the Castle tried to kill us all. Her hands clasp over her heart as she answers, “Oh no, are there not enough? I gathered as many of the spares as I could from the other bedrooms around the Castle-”

“He’s being sarcastic.” Pidge says with a wave of her hands, curling her nose to push up her glasses to look at me from where she sits just to Allura’s left on the couch, “Haven’t you heard that sarcasm is the  _ lowest form of humor? _ ” She’s wearing her hoodie but no pajama pants, instead she has these baggy shorts that come to about mid thigh on her and it’s so bizarre to see so much of her legs that it makes me have a double take. Not that it’s strange or unsightly, it’s more like  _ wow I’ve never seen Pidge’s thighs before _ . I know I’d have the same reaction with Lance, Hunk, Shiro,  _ Keith. Hm, lets not think about Keith’s thighs, for fucks sake. _

Hunk snorts at this and nudges Pidge with his elbow from where he’s splayed out on the floor in the center of the circled couch, “Honestly, I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not right now, and that makes it better.” I shake my head and settle down on the edge of the couch, minding the head of the guitar on my back.

Lance is reclined like a Roman emperor on top of the couch lip to my left, crowned in his pajamas with the blue lion slippers that match and all in all looking very comfortable. He lifts his chin to look at Allura with a cocked eyebrow, “Say Princess, do you ever have slumber parties?” 

Allura briskly shakes her head, “No, I’ve never heard of such a strange tradition before. Do all Earthlings typically-”

“I can already answer this: no.” Pidge answers with a fingergun towards Lance, “Because we are not typical  _ Earthlings. _ ” 

“That’s right!” Lance declares, rolling to have both of his arms behind his head as he looks at Allura, “We’re far from typical. One could almost say we’re  _ out of this world. _ ” He follows this with a charming wink in her direction. 

I stand up with a deadpan expression but a teasing lilt in my voice, “ _ Whelp,  _ I’m outta here-”

“Oh my crow, Will! You have your guitar!” I turn back to see Hunk pointing up at me with an enthusiastic grin, sitting up with his hands clapped together, “Oh-oh-oh,  _ are you guys thinking what I’m thinking? _ ” 

Pidge lets out a groan to my right as Hunk and Lance make eye contact, “Oh no, don’t say it-”

_ “Campfire songs!”  _ The pair proclaim loudly into the space, throwing their arms in the air. Pidge gives me a look like she’s on  _ the Bureau _ , I have to cover my mouth to stop a laugh from coming out.

“I must say,” Allura begins with her hands rested elegantly on her knee, “Since you showed me the instrument when we left Olkarion, I’ve been eager to hear what Earthling music sounds like.”

“Oh geez, no pressure.” I snort, already giddy as I twist my torso and bring the guitar around to rest on my knee, “Alright chucklefucks, what do you wanna hear?”

“Well, what can you play?” Lance asks with a raised finger, hanging upside down from the top of the couch and giving me an inquisitive look, “‘Cause that’ll narrow it down.” 

“It really won’t.” I retort, softly rapping my knuckles along the wooden body as I meet Lance’s gaze, “How’s this: who’s your favorite artist right now?”

Hunk immediately laughs and shakes his head, “Oh no, you can’t play it, he likes those songs that are all like,” Hunk sucks in a deep breath and makes a loud  _ BUUUUUR-BUR  _ sound with his lips closed, like a human bass. 

He only stops when Lance smacks him, “Hey, don’t speak for me! And that’s not at all what it sounds like, it’s more like,” Lance lifts himself upright, covering a hand over his mouth and dropping his voice as low as possible with bursting rumbles like a car going down a gravel driveway. 

“Guys,  _ please,  _ it’s more like,” Pidge opens her mouth and begins to make these ungodly buzzing noises, like a demented, injured horsefly. 

“Back again with the bad sound effects.” Shiro mumbles over my shoulder as he moves to get settled to my right. 

“But I don’t know artists or anything,” Lance laces his fingers together in his lap, suddenly cocking an eyebrow at me almost challengingly, “But my favorite song is  _ Boom Boom Boom _ . Can you play  _ that _ ?”

Keith’s sitting to the right side on the couch seat proper, his legs are crossed under him with a pillow resting on his lap, probably either confiscated from or as defense from a recent pillow fight, and he’s wearing one of those red shirts with the symbol of Voltron in black across the chest. For the first time since I’ve walked in he sits up and speaks, looking at Lance without much expression, “That song is nothing but bass and sex innuendos, Lance, there’s no way he can play it on that.” He gestures towards the guitar in my lap with his chin.

He gasps with a hand over his chest, “What? There’s more to it than that! The words are  _ deep  _ and  _ meaningful! _ ” 

I can’t help but snort, “Oh, you mean the song with the chorus that’s just  _ ‘it’s true the wall’s have ears, we keep up the neighbors every night with our boom boom boom?’ _ ”

Allura’s face flushes and she lets out a surprised laugh, a hand clasped over her mouth as her strange blue eyes reflect the minimum blue light like that of a cat’s in the dark room, “That is  _ certainly  _ an innuendo that I can understand.” 

I may not be able to see because of the lack of light in the room in combination with Lance’s complexion, but I am absolutely certain that he’s blushing as he clears his throat, “Well…! It’s still got plenty of meaning to it!”

“Oh  _ yeah  _ it does.” I tease in a crooning tone, causing Lance to hurl a pillow at me from across the room. “Well,” I cock an eyebrow as a sudden song comes to mind, smirking broadly as my fingers almost immediately itch in anticipation, “You guys ever see that movie, what’s it…  _ Strade’s Bar? _ ” 

Lance gasps immediately, “Hell  _ yeah  _ I did! That has Rond Burndy in it, the guy’s a  _ legend _ !” 

I raise an eyebrow at him and tap my fingertips to the frets, recalling the song’s notes that float across my mind’s eye, “You remember the bar scene? When they all start flinging the beer bottles around?” Lance nods enthusiastically, so hoping that this will ignite some spark of recognition I crash into the song, my fingers almost move too fast at how excited I am to play it. Pidge, to my shock, immediately gasps, her hands clapping together with anticipation but I’m alone when the words start but frankly, I couldn’t care less. This is my element; the others fly, hack, fight, but I  _ play.  _

_ “I was walking down the street when out the corner of my eye, _ _   
_ _ I saw a pretty little thing approaching me, _ _   
_ _ She said, “I never seen a man, who looks so all alone, _ _   
_ _ Could you use a little company? _ _   
_ _ If you can pay the right price, your evening will be nice, _ _   
_ _ Or you can go and send me on my way.” _ _   
_ _ I said, “You’re such a sweet young thing, why you do this to yourself?” _ _   
_ __ She looked at me, and this is what she said:”

Lance gasps dramatically when I launch into the chorus and immediately joins in with me with bright enthusiasm,

_ “Oh there ain’t no rest for the wicked, _ _   
_ _ Money don’t grow on trees, _ _   
_ _ I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed, _ _   
_ _ There ain’t nothing in this world for free! _ _   
_ _ Oh no, I can’t slow down, I can’t hold back _ _   
_ _ Though you know, I wish I could, _ _   
_ _ Oh no there ain’t no rest for the wicked _ _   
_ __ Until we close our eyes for good.”

LanceThis seems to jog some sort of memory in Hunk as his mouth makes an  _ o  _ and he joins in at the bridge, causing Pidge to make eye contact with him and they begin to sing to one another in a joyous,  _ horrendously  _ offkey choir but they’re so genuinely giddy that I’m more than happy to accompany them. 

_ “Not even fifteen minutes later after walking down the street _ _   
_ _ When I saw the shadow of a man creep out of sight, _ _   
_ _ And then he swept up from behind, he put a gun up to my head, _ _   
_ _ He made it clear he wasn’t looking for a fight, _ _   
_ _ He said, “Give me all you’ve got, I want your money not your life, _ _   
_ _ But if you try to make a move I won’t think twice.” _ _   
_ _ I told him, “You can have my cash, but first you know I gotta ask, _ _   
_ __ What made you want to live this kind of life?”

Now with the chorus again I can barely hear myself now, it seems like Hunk, Lance, and Pidge are in a shouting match of who can shout the lyrics louder,  _ this feels just like camp. _

_ “He said, oh there ain’t no rest for the wicked, _ _   
_ _ Money don’t grow on trees, _ _   
_ _ I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed, _ _   
_ _ There ain’t nothing in this world for free! _ _   
_ _ Oh no, I can’t slow down, I can’t hold back _ _   
_ _ Though you know, I wish I could, _ _   
_ _ Oh no there ain’t no rest for the wicked _ _   
_ __ Until we close our eyes for good.”

Their voices joining mine and mostly overpowering it builds my confidence, I pluck the notes and strum the chords with more and more assurance until we get to the conclusion of the song. Pidge laughs outright as I release the notes in favor of holding the neck, reaching out and giving me a high five with an enthusiastic grin, “How is it I knew you’d know that?”

“So, hold on, wait a minute,” Hunk holds up a sheepish finger, looking up at me hopefully, “Do you maybe know Nadracra?”

I blink in surprise as Lance starts upright,  _ “No way!”  _ He turns and look at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. “No way you know  _ the _ Nadracra!” Lance proclaims, waving a hand at me in a  _ get outta here  _ manner. 

I shake my head, my fingertips sliding along the strings idly, “Sure I do, only a few though.” 

_ “Whaaaat?”  _ Hunk gasps with a hand over his mouth, “But he-”

“Oh my gosh, really?! Do you know the one that goes,” Lance clears his throat, making an approximate melody as he mumble-sings,  _ “Mnn… to swim in the dark… Hm late at night…” _

I raise an eyebrow and outright laugh, “Hell yeah I know  _ What You Taught Me,  _ that’s a classic.” I immediately rap my knuckles on the wood enthusiastically, confidence snatched from somewhere obscure as I sing the introduction. Lance, knowing his time has come, belts out the words with me when the chorus hits, Hunk rapidly follows after him as the rest of the ship looks on with varying levels of amusement.

_ “I’m walking between the earth and the sky _ _   
_ _ Do you know what you taught me? _ _   
_ _ To swim in the dark, _ _   
_ _ To dance in the rain,  _ _   
_ _ To stay late at night, _ _   
_ __ That’s what you taught me.

_ To retell history, _ _   
_ _ To tell you who I am. _ _   
_ _ And accepting and believing in me _ _   
_ __ That’s what you taught me.”

I nod my head to the beat and slide my fingers down the chords with ease. I can’t stop grinning as other voices join mine in singing the middle part between words, I continue with them, the upbeat and jovial song is tangible in the air. Lance and Hunk are practically serenading each other by the time we get to the conclusion from where they sit before me, hollering  _ that’s what you taught me, that’s what you taught me  _ at obscene levels and volumes that I doubt they hear me stop to watch them, at least until Pidge hurls a pillow at them to shut them up. 

I laugh to myself and rest my hands on the strings, looking to the side and balk when I accidentally catch Keith’s gaze. He’s looking at me with eyes wide like an owl in such a manner that I also freeze, an instantaneous flood of embarrassment crowding into my throat. I don’t know what it is about the moment we share but it makes me feel _very gay._ So, I look away with a fire in my face, instead shaking my head to return to the present. “You said you wanted _camp_ fire songs though, didn’t you?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, plunking some notes as my camp memories surge back to me, “Tell me you guys know _Everything’s Great?_ ” 

Shiro snorts from beside me and when I look over at him I see he has a hand over his mouth like the sound surprised him more than it surprised the rest of us, as we all stare at him for a solid few seconds until we burst into loud,  _ loud _ laughter, the kind that hurts your sides and leaves you breathless. 

“Play it, play it!” Hunk calls, raising his fists in the air enthusiastically. Still laughing I snap the easy chords, raising my head as the ship echoes with the song.

_ “Well, everything’s great, _ _   
_ _ Life’s a dream. _ _   
_ _ We do everything! _ _   
_ __ So we’re-” 

**_“Sitting in the Castle and going to save the world!”_** Hunk overpowers us all as the insert here part rolls into the song, causing us all to laugh through to the next part, _“We do everything!”_ I do the ascending notes, _bum bam bam BUM,_ leading Shiro, Hunk, Lance, and Pidge to all cry _“WELL!”_ together at the same time, carrying the song into the interlude. At my camp this would be the part where someone would describe what we were doing in the given moment in a sardonic or overly dramatic tone, which seems to be the understanding we are all having based on how Hunk decreed it during the song. 

Lance takes the wheel, kicking his feet up as he begins, speaking surprisingly on beat as I continue to strum the interlude, “ _ Well _ , I’ve gotta say, we’re all doing some real good things tonight, what do you say, guys, am I right?” Pidge jokingly wolf whistles at him. Lance waves her down with a cocky grin as he continues, “Now I don’t know about you but that Zarkon guy? Gotta say: not cool.” 

_ “Not cool.”  _ Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge echo as per the song requires of the audience during the storytelling part, it brings a huge, warm smile to my face. 

“But you know what?” Lance continues, raising his arms as he stands as if he’s giving a rousing speech, “We’re the freaking  _ Paladins  _ of  _ Voltron _ ! We can kick his butt any day,  _ anywhere! _ ” 

_ “Anywhere!”  _ The others chorus, and with the perfect queue to fire back up into the chorus I plunk the ascending notes,  _ bum bam, bam BUM _ , pushing us all back into the chorus.

_ “Well, everything’s great, _ _   
_ _ Life’s a dream, _ _   
_ _ We do everything, _ _   
_ _ So we’re  _ **_sitting in the Castle and going to save the world!_ **

_ We do everything!” _

I swear there’s nothing but laughter for five minutes before we’re able to settle down again, that is until Pidge speaks up with a wave of her hand where she’s perched like a gargoyle on top of the couch cushion next to a completely stupified Allura, “Okay,  _ everyone  _ knows  _ Everything’s Great _ , but have you ever heard of its sister song  _ Everything Sucks _ ?” 

I raise an eyebrow, tilting my head, “Oh? How’s that go?”   
Pidge gestures for me to continue playing, so with a confused look I plunk the intro of the song,  _ bum, bam, bam, BUM,  _ and then she starts to sing, well, more like yell, the words to the  _ sister  _ song. 

_ “Well, everything sucks, _ _   
_ _ Life’s fucked up, _ _   
_ __ Why do anything?”

Hunk snorts and covers his mouth with his hand, “ _ Holy crow _ , that’s so dark! I’ve never heard that one before!” 

“Well come on, give it a try!” Pidge waves at me again, so I start back up with the intro, already feeling laughing tears in the corner of my eyes as we dive in. 

_ “Well, everything sucks, _ _   
_ _ Life’s fucked up, _ _   
_ _ Why do anything? _ _   
_ __ So we’re…” 

We look at once another for the fill in space but nothing comes, we all just look at each other expectantly and laugh, instead finishing the song,  _ “Why do anything?”  _

Allura starts clapping once we’ve stopped laughing something like five minutes later, “How wonderful!” She says with a bright smile, regarding each of us with a warm gaze, “Such an adorable form of music!” 

I notice Lance shifting with a flustered air beside her, fiddling with his hands like they just randomly sprouted from his body and he isn’t sure what to do with them. It makes me wanna tease him but I decide against it, instead focusing on Allura, “There’s a wider variety, believe me, but there’s only so much I can do with this.” I hold up the neck of the guitar as if case in point before adding, “Gimme a keyboard and a good recording app and I could play a fuckton more.” 

I practically jump when I hear Shiro chuckle beside me, “A man of many talents.” I raise an eyebrow over at him where he’s reclining on a pillow next to Keith. Both of their faces are red from laughing or singing, I can’t tell which - not that I’m looking too hard at Keith because the  _ last  _ thing I need to see is him looking breathless like that,  _ oh  _ man - but then the pair both give me such a startling similar look that I’m  _ shook _ . 

“Shit,” I joke with a slight grin, “You sure you’re not related? You look  _ so  _ alike right now.” I make a gesture towards my face with another in their direction to show what I mean. 

They blink like siamese twins as Pidge cries out in victory, pointing at them from across the couch, “Ha! I  _ told  _ you!” 

Lance scoffs and waves at them dismissively, “Pfft, no way! Not at all, look at them, they look nothing alike!” He points at Shiro, who has an expression of sheepish self consciousness, then at Keith, who has an expression of complete, adorable confusion that makes my little gay heart have a  _ moment.  _

“I mean, I can see it.” Hunk says with a shrug, “You guys make similar facial expressions sometimes.” 

Lance snorts and shakes his head, “Pfft, no way, Keith’s only look is,” He makes a gloomy, caricature frown with his arms crossed, while it is exaggerated it is  _ surprisingly _ accurate. 

Keith shoots that same look at him and that’s what makes me laugh, I clap a hand over my mouth at the last second with an apologetic wave of my hands, “Sorry! Sorry, ahm… not funny.” 

“Oh my crow, not again.” Hunk groans immediately, holding his hands up pleadingly, “Guys,  _ please  _ don’t pillow fight again, my shoulder still hurts!”

Pidge snickers and adds on with a wicked grin, “Yeah,  _ think of the children! _ ”

Lance raises an eyebrow at Pidge and smirks challengingly, “Oh, you? What’re you, twelve, right?” 

Pidge bristles, pushing her glasses up her nose,  _ “Fourteen!!”  _

I blink stupidly before smirking, cooing in a tone I’d use to babytalk to a dog,  _ “Aww, you’re such a wittle baby!” _

Shiro raises his hands up diplomatically before Pidge gets riled up, “Alright, alright, let’s settle down. We do have to fall asleep eventually.” 

“Pfft, who needs sleep?” I joke, pulling my guitar off as I stand and setting it upright in the doorway and out of the way.  _ I have a feeling that a pillow fight is imminent, I’ve gotta get this out of the way as fast as possible.  _

Keith speaks up then, cocking an eyebrow at Lance with a broad smirk, “Some of us more than others.” 

I have to sit back down relatively immediately because of how weak my knees suddenly get.  _ Someone break out a chisel to inscribe my burial stone: R.I.P. Will Lancaster, Cause of Death: Keith’s fucking smirk.  _

Lance makes a high pitched noise, a hand braced over his chest as he whirls on Keith, “Well,  _ excuuuuuse me _ for wanting my beauty sleep! You don’t get this flawless skin for nothing, you know!” 

“Oh man, I didn’t know just sleeping could fix  _ all that. _ ” Pidge jokes with a big, crooked grin with a wave of her hand at Lance’s face. Lance immediately shrieks like a banshee and flies across the circle with grabbing hands towards Pidge, who manages to duck out of his grasp just in time by rolling off to the side and scurrying to get behind me, sticking me between the two. 

“Get back here, Pidge!” Lance proclaims, approaching with a challenging, narrowed look over my head at where Pidge crouches with maniacal laughter regularly emitting from her little body like a haunted house’s speaker. 

“You can’t get me!” She proclaims, her hands rested on my shoulders as she scuttles like a crab in opposing directions of Lance as they circle me. 

I look between the two of them only briefly before I duck my head and drop to the couch with a laugh, “Hell no, you ain’t getting me involved in this!” 

As I straighten to sit back upright I hear Pidge squeal followed by a loud thump, I’m kicked in the back and sent sprawling into the middle of the couch circle where Hunk lies innocently. For me it feels like falling onto a warm pillow, but for Hunk, based on his bugged eyes and loud groaning, it was not nearly as lukewarm of an experience. I sit up right as Pidge hurls a pillow at Lance to escape only for it to be sent awry, instead smacking Princess Allura directly in the face. 

The whole bridge is quiet for a moment as the pillow falls in her lap, her eyes are wide in surprise like she was just told alarming news. She looks down at the pillow then before her at Lance and Pidge, who are frozen mid struggle with wide, stunned eyes, and with her hand curling a fist into the pillow’s corner she stands upright with a challenging smirk, brandishing the pillow like a sword, “Are you challenging me?” 

Pidge takes the opportunity to kick Lance off of her, grabbing a pillow from behind her as she gets to her feet, “Oh please, I’ve got an older brother, I can take  _ all  _ of you down.” 

“Oh, I’ve got a stake in this.” Hunk grumbles under me and knocks me over as he rises like a slumbering grizzly, snatching a spare pillow from the couch cushions with a battle cry, “Time to end this little game, once and for all!” 

“Oh hell.” I turn and vault to the top tier of the couch, sidling up behind Shiro and Keith where they sit watching the scene unfold, “Protect me.” I plea.

“Oh hell no!” Pidge cries with a finger pointed in my direction, “I’m taking you down first, traitor!”

Lance grabs a pillow from where he got knocked over, twisting to his feet as he raises a cocky eyebrow in our direction, “Trying to hide from this one, too, Keith?  _ You scared? _ ”

Keith narrows his eyes at Lance with a growing smirk, a challenging fire lighting across his black gaze as he slowly brings up the pillow in his lap like he’s unsheathing a sword, “Oh, it’s on.”

Shiro looks at my wide eyed expression with a sudden smirk, raising an eyebrow at me as he subtly reaches for a pillow beside him, “Battle stance, Lancaster.” 

“Oh, _ fuck me. _ ” I cry right as all hell breaks loose. Pillows are sent flying, there’s only chaos and screaming and pillows and blankets getting slung all over the place, I scurry and grab one that falls and attempt to amass a defense but I’m already a dozen hits too late, it’s like I’m caught in a fluffy hailstorm. Before I can scramble to my feet a whole body falls on top of me with a loud cry in surprise and sends me sprawling on my stomach, I kick out with an angry shout, “ _ Ger-off me _ , I swear to God, I’ll  _ destroy you! _ ”

I think every single brain cell in my head dies when the body shifts and a husky voice breathes on the back of my neck, “Sure, just try it.” 

Keith pressed down harder on my shoulder blades as Lance’s feet rush towards him in my peripheral, I try to shift and get Keith off while Lance has him distracted. It takes a few seconds until finally he loses his balance and falls off to the side. I squirm out just in time as Pidge suddenly dashes in my direction, on instinct I lash out and smack her square in the chest with the pillow. She stalls in her escape before she’s struck in the back by Allura, falling onto her face and stays down for the count. Allura now wields two pillows, swinging them in deadly arcs around her and absolutely  _ pummelling  _ Hunk, who has his arms raised in front of his face that muffles his pleas for mercy. She’s only stopped when Shiro swoops in like a guardian angel in black pajamas, lifting one of her hands up to knock her off balance before smacking her in the side with his pillow. She stumbles a bit but recovers surprisingly quickly, but before I can see any more Lance collides into my back and we both nearly lose balance and fall into the central couch circle. I grab the back of his shirt and pull him back just before he dives, pulling him back upright. 

“Woo! Nice catch!” Lance congratulates with a hand on my back and a cocky grin, “Totally thought you would’ve dropped me.  _ Again. _ ” I smack him full force with my pillow.

The battle lasts for a long while until we’re all collapsed in various points around the room, panting and laughing, my sides and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much and my fingers ache from their tight hold on the pillows I’d managed to snatch. 

Lance’s voice is drowsy and his words slur together, “... I win.” 

I grab the closest pillow and hurl it in his direction, and based on the  _ thump  _ and his whiny voice responding  _ “Hey!”  _ I’d say I hit my mark. 

All is quiet, I hear the sound of deep breathing until the air suddenly hums with Hunk’s snores, shaking the space with surprising ferocity. Muffled laughs echo in the space from the others before it all falls to quiet again. I roll onto my stomach and sit up on my elbows to see the others collapsed around the room. Allura is on the couch with her eyes peacefully closed and her mouth playing a grin, her hands clasped and resting on her stomach where she lies on the cushions with her feet splayed before her. Pidge is starfishing in the very center of the couch circle on top of Hunk, who’s visibly clonked the fuck  _ out _ . Lance is nothing but dangling limbs, half hanging off the couch while half laying face down on the blankets, he’s already drooling onto the pillow he’d managed to shove under his face before he fell asleep. Keith’s to my right with an arm draped over his eyes with a lingering grin across his expression, and just beyond him I see Shiro’s collected a series of blankets and pillows like a dragon atop its horde. He makes eye contact with me as the others’ breathing begins to even and draw out, an unspoken question in how he raises his eyebrows at me. 

I merely return with a broad, appreciative smile.  _ This was perfect, Shiro. Thank you.  _

He smiles in return and I flop onto my chest, tugging on the closest blanket and pillow from the shrewn set around the room and bundling up. I breathe in deeply once, twice, before I’m out.

… 

_ “Well hey there, long time no see.”  _

_ I blink and turn around in my surroundings. I’m in the space base, or at least what looks like the space base, it’s a violet metal hanger with a glass roof over my head and spires that hold it in place. The entire deck is barren, it’s as large as three football fields without a ship resting on it and seems like a huge, huge space to be standing in alone.  _

_ A hand grasps my shoulders and I’m turned around to meet icy blue eyes like the sky on a clear day. My heart jumps in my throat as Damien hugs me tightly, I feel like he’s covered in hot glue because his touch is simultaneously scorching while also clinging tightly to me. He pulls away and I can see that I was right; where Damien’s touched me I’m covered in black ooze, like mud or tar. I try to wipe it off but his hand touches my chin, lifting my gaze up to meet his and halting my movements. He’s not dripping this ooze or anything, it seems to just manifest beneath his fingertips and onto me like he’s the hot glue gun rather than the melted wax.  _

_ “You look good.” He purrs, his hands travel to my forearms from my shoulders, “That paladin training really trims you up, huh?” _

_ “Will, come on, we’ve gotta get back.” A familiar voice orders from behind me. I whirl around like I just got struck by lightning to stand face to face with Keith. He’s not in his armor like I expected, but that jacket. That dumb, stupid jacket. He’d opened his mouth as if to say something but stops when I look at him, he’s flickering his pretty indigo gaze across my features like the instantaneous embarrassment in my eyes is a difficult line of code. I feel like I just got caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, my heart’s in my throat and my palms are insanely sweaty. He raises an innocent eyebrow at me with a look that makes my heart thud in my chest, “What’re you looking at me like that for?” _

_ Damien behind me has let me go but I can feel him hovering over my shoulder, his breath smells of green apples as he snorts, “Wow, really? This guy? I thought you had better taste than that.” _

_ I glance over my shoulder at Damien with grit teeth but he merely cocks an eyebrow at me with a knowing smirk, silently telling me ‘what, am I wrong?’ I turn back towards Keith to apologize but I balk again when I see him looking at me with a strange look, I can’t quite describe it save that it’s soft.  _

_ “Is something wrong?” He asks with a raised eyebrow, flickering his gaze to the space behind me only briefly before looking back at me with a questioning look. I flicker my gaze to Damien’s smirk then to Keith’s expression and realize that Keith doesn’t seem to see or hear him.  _

_ “Yeah, babe, what’s wrong?” Damien leans his head on my shoulder with a coy grin. I slip from under him as the black ooze, hot and uncomfortable, drips down my neck and my shirt. I shudder.  _

_ “I’m fine.” I state quickly, shaking my head as I fix my gaze solely on Keith, ignoring the blonde devil hovering over my shoulder.  _

_ Keith’s eyes are firmly planted on mine and I almost want to shrink away from them, they’re so… searching, I suppose, I feel like he’s literally digging into my soul to glean information from me. Finally he speaks, stepping forward to move past me, “If you say so. Come on, they’re waiting for us on the bridge.” His hand reaches down to grab my wrist and I jerk my hand away as fast as I can, “No don’t!” But it’s too late; the black tar dripping from my arm is already smeared across his hand.  _

_ Keith blinks and looks back at me with a look incredulous annoyance, “What?”  _

_ I look at his hand and then mine, pulling my arms close to my chest and taking a step away from him, “You’re gonna get it stuck to you, too.”  _

_ Keith raises an eyebrow and then flickers his gaze down to his hand, it seems to dawn on him what just happened. He curls his nose and flicks his wrist to try and get it off but it sticks firm to his gloves and the skin it managed to latch onto, some black flecks scattering on the smoothed lilac floors with the violent shaking but it remains primarily stuck. He looks at me with furrowed eyebrows and a twisted expression, “Ugh, what  _ **_is_ ** _ that?”  _

_ Damien snickers behind me and rests his elbow on my other shoulder, more scorching ooze melting down my arm as he looks at his fingertips, “Hmm, what indeed?”  _

_ I twist out from under him again before turning to Keith, who’s slinging his hand back and forth in an attempt to get the something like tar off of him. “I can explain,” I begin, my voice is shaking, I wish it wouldn’t, get yourself together- _

_ “But can you?” Damien counters, it sounds like he’s floating just behind me as he speaks in a low undertone, “Gonna tell broody boy here what you are?  _ **_Who_ ** _ you  _ **_really_ ** _ are?”  _

_ “Stop it.” I growl under my breath, shaking my head to push his voice aside.  _

_ “This is just… gross.” Keith looks down at his hand with a growing expression of disgust, “How the hell did you get this on me?”  _

_ “I’m sorry!” I say quickly, taking a step forward with a genuinely apologetic waver in my voice, “I didn’t mean to, it’s-” _

_ Keith immediately takes a step back from me, his look of repulsion now fixed on me, “No, stay away from me!” _

_ I halt in my tracks as Keith takes another retreating step, flickering his gaze, now hard as obsidian, across my form. Damien chuckles over my shoulder and I feel his breath on the back of my neck, “Oh, ouch.”  _

_ Keith speaks again, shuddering as he tries to peel the drying tar off of his hands, “You can keep this… stuff to yourself.” He turns and walks off at a brisk pace, like he can’t wait to get out of here. My chest aches like nothing else, aches and aches like Keith ripped out my tar covered heart and took it with him.  _

_ White light brightens around me until it’s all I can see, I can’t see my hands it’s so bright, it’s like a flash grenade went off. “Sloppy seconds.” Damien whispers, his voice rounds about me like the swirling smoke of the White Lion’s testing dreams. Suddenly standing is too hard, my legs give out as I fall to my knees, I try to block my ears but his voice persists anyway, cutting past any of my defenses, “Broken toy. That’s what you are without me. No one wants you. You can’t seem to get that into that pretty little head of yours.” _

_ “Shut up.” I whisper under my breath.  _

_ Damien snickers and I feel his hands curl into my hair with affectionate tugs, it makes the permeating ache in my chest pulse like I got shocked as he purrs, “Why are you so surprised? You seriously think he’d like you after you spread your  _ **_disease_ ** _ everywhere?”  _

_ I lift my head and scream at the top of my lungs, “I said  _ **_SHUT UP!_ ** _ ” _

I start awake violently with a shaky breath, I sit up with my hands pressed firm against my chest as I look around the room wildly to get my bearings. I see nothing but darkness, but the air is filled with the sounds of calm, deep, sleeping breath of the others all gathered in this space, the lounge.  _ Oh no, we’re all in the lounge. The whole damn ship.  _ Immediately I silence my panicked breathing and instead seal my eyes shut in an attempt to steel myself forcefully but my breathing refuses to relax, my lungs feel like they are on fire. I try to suck in breath as quietly as I can manage, now that I’m aware of the others sleeping around me at least, but it’s no use. I feel like I’m about to black out, I need air, I need to get out of here,  _ now. _

Without thinking I burst to my feet, moving as quickly and as quietly as I physically can until I’m in the hallway. I turn a corner and once I feel I’m far away enough that I won’t wake anyone I immediately let rip the terrifying, shaking breath that I was holding in, sliding down the wall as I rest the back of my head against the cold white metal. I seal my eyes tight and once I have enough air to function I rasp out in full desperation, “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I’m alive. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Breathe again.” 

It helps. Soon my breathing settles and returns to a bit more of a normal level, if still like I just sprinted at a track meet. It’s only then that I feel the cold trail that tears leave in their wake on around my eyes, still clinging to my chin. I slowly open my eyes and wipe my face with a sniffle, counting out my breaths to regulate them better now that it’s not make or break.  _ Fuck. What the fuck was that? _

_ My subconscious is really hung up on this thing, isn’t it? Jesus Christ, I don’t need to be reminded that I shouldn’t be feeling what I feel about Keith, I get it, enough is enough, quit throwing your barely veiled threats into my dreams. This can’t be the kind of dreams other people get, this can’t be normal… can it? _

Suddenly I hear the softest patter of bare feet on the metal floor, halting the sob in my throat. I tense up when a shadow strides out at a quick pace from hence I just came, and my heart stutters so violently out of time that not even a metronome could put it back to rights. 

“Keith?” I ask, I can’t help the incredulous tone that melts into my voice. He’s just a mere shadow as my eyes are still adjusting to the minimal turquoise light so I can’t see his face all that well, but the outline of his hair, wild and curled just at the nape of his neck, is unmistakable. Keith starts, whirling towards me with a sharp turn as I clear my throat, fighting to sound as lackadaisical and  _ calm  _ as possible, “... What’re you doing up?”  _ Semi-successful. Hopefully he’ll just think I sound tired. _

“I… You…” I can’t see his expression through the darkness but I get the feeling he’s opening his mouth and then closing it again, starting and stopping several times as he stands with his hands hovering in front of him before he takes cautious steps in my direction, like he’s approaching a wild dog. “You ran out and I thought that uh… I was just… Worried and…?”

Keith’s words scramble together, and the  _ adorable _ blundering brings me enough out of myself to straighten in my seat on the floor to peer up at him with a raised eyebrow, “What’re you going on about? Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine, I, sorry I uh…” I can see the gleam of his eyes as they flicker across my form sitting on the floor, my eyes are beginning to adjust. His eyebrows are drawn together and uncertainty is etched into his features, his hands are sort of outstretched like he wants to help me up. 

Despite the situation I can’t help but snort. “Damn, Keith… you’re so fucking awkward.” Keith makes a frustrated noise that little gay heart stutter out of time but I quickly cut him off before he says a substantial word, “It’s okay, that’s not a bad thing.” I watch him hovering with an obvious air of discomfort for a moment before I gesture with my chin, “Why don’t you sit down before you hurt yourself?”

“I wasn’t..! I’m not-!” 

“Take a hint, Keith.” I say with a coy expression, flickering my gaze down to the floor beside me before looking back up at him. I’m thankful for the darkness of the corridor, without it I know I’d be metaphysically as well as physically on the floor in embarrassment if Keith could see just how flushed my face is right now. Slowly the pieces seem to click together and he sinks to sit beside me, his hands awkwardly hovering over his knees where he sits with his legs crisscrossed beneath him. 

I bump him with my knee in an affectionate manner, speaking in a low murmur, “Sorry if I woke you up.” 

“... It’s fine.” He says after a moment. His voice is husky and unused, making it all together far too  _ sexy  _ to be legal, I kind of wanna kick him to see if I can’t get him to straighten it out or something.  _ Yeah, that’ll do it, kick Keith until he stops being so damn attractive. What a brilliant plan, you useless homosexual.  _ “You just sounded freaked out.” Keith murmurs, breaking me out of my thoughts, “Wanted to make sure something wasn’t… um… wrong. But uh… guess there isn’t anything I can help with if there is though… I don’t know, is there?” 

I can’t help but smile a bit, glancing at him out of my peripheral, “You’re really not used to his whole  _ comforting  _ thing, are you?” 

Keith lets out a long sigh, a hand reaches up and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly as he finally growls under his breath in frustration, “Well, I’m trying, aren’t I?” 

I can’t help but smile, a gentle laugh makes my shoulders shake, “Don’t worry about it. It’s the thought that counts.” I look down at my hands in the darkness, running a thumb across the scar on my palm. It’s angry and raised from the recent abuse it’s sustained in the past few days, hot under my fingertips.

“Bad dream?” Keith asks in a low rumble, a rather dramatic switch in tone. I glance over at him and mentally balk when I see him looking at me, my eyes have fully adjusted now and he looks shockingly soft, his bangs hang over his eyes and a small part of me wants to reach out and brush them out of the way so I can see his eyes more clearly.  _ Fuck. I’m gay. _

Slowly I croak, “Yeah.” I clear my throat and pull my knees to me chest, wrapping my arms around them and setting my chin on top.  _ I’m in this mess because of these feelings. Why can’t I get a fucking hold of myself? _

“They aren’t those test dreams, are they?” Keith asks with a serious tenor in his voice, his hands are holding his ankles below him, “The ones that start with your lion showing up?”

I shake my head, “No. I haven’t had those since we got here.” I sigh, frowning deeply as I turn suddenly with a question on the tip of my tongue, fixing Keith with a serious gaze, “Keith, do you dream?” 

Keith stares at me for a long time without a change in his expression, his eyebrow is raised in the barest hint of a question before after several beats of silence he nods mutely. I let out a sigh and speak mostly with my hands, the proper words escape me time after time before I can find them again, “Thing is I heard that people sometimes don’t dream, or they don’t ever have dreams or whatever. I never had a normal dream before, you know, I don’t know what normal dreams look like, so I don’t know if what dreams I’m having now are normal, you know? I don’t have a point of reference. But they can’t be normal, can they? They don’t seem like they should be normal, nine times out of ten they leave me scared or angry or feeling all and all pathetic, and based on how people have described dreams I just feel like they shouldn’t  _ be  _ like that, you know?” I growl and wave my hands with more agitation, I’m rattling completely off the hook but I can’t seem to get my mouth to follow the stone of caution rising in my throat, “If they are normal then I do  _ not  _ fuck with that, that’s fucking lame and stupid, I want a dream where I feel in control for once and not at the mercy of whatever dark shit my subconscious wants to dredge up and dangle in front of me, seriously, what the fuck is with that? It’s like  _ ‘Hey Will, long time no see, remember this deep insecurity you have? Let’s fuckin’ make it a big deal with symbolic metaphors that show how pathetic and weak you are, just in case you forgot that’s what you-’ _ ”

“For fucks sake, Will, stop.” Keith reaches out and grabs my wrists to stop my hands from waving around, effectively cutting me off in every single facet as my thoughts short circuit from the touch. I look at him with wide eyes as he peers right back at me with a firm set in his brow, his mouth in a hard line and his eyes glitter like the depths of space. For once my thoughts are completely silent, perfectly content to just  _ stare _ .  _ Wow. Hi. _

“You can’t just let thoughts like that run around rampant like that.” Keith huffs, his voice is dark and impatient and it makes me have to swallow so I don’t internally scream  _ hnnnnnnnn I’m gay.  _ “You think way,  _ way _ too much, man.” 

For a moment I’m silent, merely staring at Keith’s hands wrapped around my wrists and holding them there. It’s weird to see him without any sort of gloves on, those fingerless ones he wears around or the gloves we have in our suits. I smirk after a moment and look back up to meet his gaze, “Really, you’re only noticing that now?” 

Keith doesn’t say anything but he does release my wrists, instead settling his hands instead on his knees. I let out a sigh and hang my head, running my fingertips again on the scar on my palm, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble like that. I usually can keep a lid on that stuff but uh… I don’t know. Today my mouth’s kinda turned into a loose cannon.” 

Keith lets out a dry laugh, turning his head to the side and peering down the hall, “Yeah, I get that.” 

I don’t say anything further, instead looking at my feet. When I close my eyes I can almost feel Damien’s breath on the back of my neck, hissing with malice,  _ ‘You seriously think he’d still like you even a little after you spread your  _ **_disease_ ** _ everywhere?’  _

“I won’t happen again.” I state firmly, clearing my throat as I straighten a little more, planting my palms on the ground in preparation to rise, “I should-”

“Will, wait.” I pause and glance over at Keith with a raised eyebrow. He has a hand outstretched slightly as if to stop me but it falls when I freeze. His expression is hard to describe, for once it doesn’t look like he’s wearing a mask, rather he looks open, his eyes look like they could hold entire galaxies within.  _ Fuck. _

“I’m sorry I cut you off.” Keith mumbles, there’s an awkward lilt in his tone as he speaks uncertainly, “I don’t really know how to… I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to keep thinking so down on yourself like that so that’s why I told you to stop, but you shouldn’t feel bad for talking about what’s going on in your head. I wasn’t trying to tell you to stop talking about that, just the…” He makes various gestures with his hands as he speaks, like he’s lacking the words and he’s making it up with the vague movements. 

My heart melts a little, I sink back down fully to sit beside him and let out a sigh. “... I know. I’m sorry, I know that. I just…” I let out a dark sigh, my tongue starts moving before my brain can catch up,  _ again _ , “I get scared thinking I might accidentally say something I don’t want to and I can’t take it back. Once it’s out there it’s out there, and I don’t wanna infect anyone with this…  _ poison _ that haunts me-” I halt myself abruptly and grit my teeth while letting out a forced breath, closing my eyes tightly.  _ Whoa. Whoa. Back off. No. Do not get near that subject. You’re getting way way way too close. Stop. Reverse.  _ “I didn’t mean to project that fear on you. I’m sorry.”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a long time, I don’t dare meet his gaze. I shift and lean fully against the wall and close my eyes, measuring my breaths to keep them in line.  _ Oh my God that was so close. If nothing else, that dream is most certainly a warning from within at what’ll happen if I let anyone in on that shit. Little heavy handed, subconscious, but message received.  _

“Um. Thanks.” Keith murmurs before he verbally stumbles, “I mean, it’s okay. You’re fine. You’re welcome? Er- It’s fine!”

I blink and immediately bust out in laughter,  _ real hard  _ laughter, I’m barely able to recover before I wheeze, “Keith, what the hell?”

Keith growls under his breath and frowns as he pushes his bangs out of his face, “Ugh, _ I’m sorry _ , I’m messing this up. People don’t really open up to me, I don’t know what to do, or say, or…”

“You don’t have to say anything.” I answer with another laugh, patting Keith’s shoulder as I bring my laughter under control, “Really. You’re really good about that, you know.” It’s strange because I don’t find my smile is forced, not even in the slightest, as I turn and gaze over at Keith with a warm expression, “You don’t fill up space with sounds just because, every word you say counts. That’s a rare thing… So embrace it.” 

I want to say more but when I look at Keith my entire system just fucking shuts down. His eyes are starry and his expression is wide open in surprise and dear  _ God  _ that makes my inner gay feelings spark and stutter like a hissing fireplace. 

For a moment without my consent my gaze flickers down to his lips. I’m  _ so, so tempted  _ to lean closer but then I hear the little voice in my head, the hot breath down my neck,  _ sloppy seconds, broken toy. _

I clear my throat and look away before I get too mentally carried away, pushing off the wall and dusting myself off as I stand before I hold out a hand to help Keith up. “Well, I’ve had enough talking about my feelings for a day. You?” 

Keith doesn’t say anything for a long time. He looks at me with a confused expression before he looks at my hand like he’s wrestling with some internal emotion until finally he smirks, and I die. I just fucking die on the spot. He grabs my hand and I have the mentality to help him up as he raises an eyebrow at me, “Yeah, guess you have, huh?”  _ Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck. _

“Hmm, yep!” My voice is high pitched like I just got punched,  _ fuck’s sake, Will, get your gay ass together.  _ “Yes! Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yes. Alright.”  _ Fuck. _

Keith raises an eyebrow at me mutely as I stutter like a broken record. Finally I clear my throat and pat his shoulder as I turn back towards the lounge, “Wow, I am  _ tired _ , let’s go get some of that sleep. Sleep is good, don’t you think? It’s so great.” 

Keith chuckles under his breath and I internally  _ yell  _ when I see him smirking out of the corner of my eye, “You sound like you’re having a stroke.” 

“Am not!” I protest, I am grateful for the darkness of the corridor because I am positive my face is as red as my hair. “I’m just… Tired!” 

“Sure.” Keith answers with a note of confusion but mostly amusement in the edges of his voice. We enter the lounge and I practically faceplant on the floor where I was sleeping before, curling around the pillow I was sleeping on. It’s relatively nicely lit in the room with Hunk’s lights around the center, exponentially brighter than it is in the hallway, I can see Keith’s face glowing in the gold and it makes my throat constrict. He looks over at me with a slight raise in his eyebrow and I wave. 

I then plant my face into the fucking pillow.  _ Why the fuck did I fucking wave?  _

_ I’m too gay for this. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god I never meant for the intermission to be this long but here we are.  
> Don't worry I promise they're getting to the BOM base soon!  
> But not before I finally get y'all some answers to the 725897345 questions that've posed  
> Songs are (in order):  
> Too Good at Goodbyes by Sam Smith  
> No Place in Heaven by MIKA  
> Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by Cage the Elephant  
> Ce que tu m'appris by Arcardian is the other song, but translated to English and the artist name is reversed (Arcardian... Nadracra) because I'm too lazy to write a new song that is technically "current" songs (like, coming up with future pop culture is already hard, I keep slipping up and accidentally throwing in modern pop culture stuff but I'm also trying to make ones that make sense for the future bc the setting is the year 2118 atm, but BRUH coming up with modern day songs?? Nah man. I'm just gonna take now songs and change them a lil' bit; in this case take a french pop song and put it in english)  
> The last song is actually an original song by my close camp friend Simon, it's called "Everything's Great" (Song we'd sing with the campers) and then "Everything Sucks" (Song we sang to each other), it's interactive as camp songs should be!  
> The song that's mentioned in passing as well, "Boom Boom Boom" is an actual song by MIKA except it's "Boum Boum Boum", it's in French and the line that was referred to in his song is "C'est vrai que les murs ont des oreilles, Que tous les voisins se réveillent, Mais c'est comme ça qu'on fait l'amour, Quand toi et moi on fait boum boum boum" which translates "It's true that the walls have ears, that it wakes all of the neighbors, but it's how we make love when we are doing the boom boom boom" It's a bop, would recommend


	7. Things Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With all that's been going on, sometimes things tend to get lost in the fold. But, now, with the rest the past few days free of immediate danger on their minds, they can think about what things they may have forgotten.

The next morning I’m awakened by Shiro gently jostling me awake. I groan and smack his hands, it’s followed by the sound of him chuckling.

“Enjoy sleeping on the floor?”

I grumble with slurred words, “Fuck off.”

“You want breakfast or what?”

Slowly and reluctantly I open my eyes and roll over, peering up at Shiro’s smiling face above me with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps.” I mumble.

Shiro snickers and holds out a hand to help me up, which I gratefully take. In a daze I follow Shiro out of the lounge, there’s no one left in there but Hunk’s lights and the many, many blankets and pillows that still litter the room.

“Did you enjoy the sleepover?” Shiro asks with a hint of amusement on the edges of his lips, cocking an eyebrow at me. 

Slowly I find a smile building across my features as I rub my eyes out of sleep, “Yeah. It was… kind of amazing, actually.” I glance over at him and raise an eyebrow, “How’d you coordinate that?” 

“On the walk to dinner, after you… didn’t join us.” Shiro answers with a serious tone, marching with purpose as he heads towards the dining room, “It was Lance’s idea at first, and it kind of grew from there. Allura helped to prepare for it by gathering blankets from around the Castle, Hunk brought his lights… It was a group effort.”

Warmth fills my chest like I’m being draped in a heated blanket, I can’t help but beam. “I… Thank you. I’m really touched, actually, that must’ve been a lot of work.”

Shiro shrugs nonchalantly, “Not as much as you would think. We were all pretty motivated, it seemed like fun. And it was.” He glances over and smiles back at me with an amicable expression, “Your music really brought up morale, too. I appreciate you sharing that with us.” 

I snicker and poke him with my elbow, “Hell yeah, ask me to  _ bring up morale  _ any time. That’s my speciality.” Shiro chuckles with a wide smile that warms my chest.  _ I haven’t seen Shiro smile this much in a while. Maybe it helped to “bring up his morale,” too. That’s such a classic Shiro thing to say. _

We walk into the dining room and see that most of the ship is already assembled, save for Lance and Coran. 

“Morning, Sleepy.” Pidge grins at me impishly, talking around the spoon in her mouth. Hunk smiles amicably at me from beside her and waves.

Keith and Allura, who have their backs to us and were speaking in low tones, turn and look at us as we walk in. Allura smiles brightly when she spots me and clasps her hands over her heart, “You look well rested!”

I smile lazily, gliding around the table to sit by Pidge and Hunk while snatching up a bowl of goo, “Well rested? I don’t know her.” 

Allura blinks cluelessly, to which Hunk waves a dismissive hand towards me, “Don’t worry about him, Princess, what he’s really saying is ‘I did, thank you.’”

I roll my eyes slightly before fixing Hunk and Pidge with a more serious expression, the night at the forefront of my thoughts, “Did you have any dreams?”

Much to my absolute relief the pair both shake their heads. “Do you think we’ll only have one dream?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow, glancing over at Pidge.

She merely shrugs in response, “Maybe. We’re in new territory here.”

“At least they’re not gonna be every night, regardless.” I say a much relieved breath, spooning some goo into my mouth.  _ Man, I wish we had something new to eat. This is practically tasteless now. _

The door opens as Lance and Coran walk in together. Lance looks like the waxy surface of a brand new phone, gleaming with a smooth glow, his hair is wet and clinging to his forehead. 

“How’s Kaltenecker?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow when Lance walks in. I blink stupidly for a solid second before I remember the whole ass  _ cow  _ we got from the mall a few days ago.  _ Shit, I’d totally forgotten about her.  _

_ I’m glad to see that Lance obviously hasn’t.  _

“Coran showed me where he’s been getting the supplies and stuff, she’s been living like the queen she is.” Lance says with a coy grin, sliding in to sit beside Keith. 

I raise an eyebrow, “Where have you been keeping her?” 

“We have containment units set up by the hangers where we used to keep wildlife for study.” Coran answers, his arms held behind his back. Coran looks much better than he did yesterday, thankfully, he looks like he may have actually gotten some sleep the night before. 

“Hold on,” I say, raising a hand, “You’re not keeping her in a  _ cage  _ are you?”

“No no no, it’s actually a super awesome set up.” Lance answers, gesturing with his hands as if to demonstrate, “It looks like she’s in a big meadow when the thingy-ma-jigger’s on, but the actual space is actually, like, as big as the lounge by the hanger. It’s pretty awesome, but…” Lance frowns, “I don’t know, she hasn’t been looking good lately.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

Hunk follows up with a slightly sheepish expression, “You’ve been feeding her, right?”

“Of course I have!” Lance huffs indignantly, tapping his finger to his palm, “She’s had hay that she’s been eating, but Coran and I put out some grain for her and she hasn’t eaten it.” 

“That’s because cows don’t eat grain.” I answer, crossing my arms on the tabletop. “Hay is really all she should need unless she specifically needs supplements or something.”

The others give me a generalistic strange and confused look before Pidge follows up, “Maybe she’s just going through an adjustment period of being on the Castle ship?”

“Did you see that cow?” Keith counters with a raised eyebrow and a slightly incredulous expression, “If six people racing on it out of the mall to escape the cops doesn’t freak it out, I think being on the ship isn’t something to blink an eye at.” 

“Yeah, she was fine for the first two days.” Lance answers, furrowing his eyebrows as he slumps a bit in his seat, “But now she’s been like… agitated, or something, she keeps mooing and getting like… pushy? I don’t know, it’s weird.” 

I frown at this, immediately digging through my memories for any sort of recollection of what could be the cause before I look back up at Lance, “Can I see her? You know, after breakfast?”

Lance raises an eyebrow at me and shrugs in mild agreement, “Sure, I guess.” He reaches over to grab a bowl of goo to dig in. 

Allura turns to look at Coran who now sits at the table with us with a bowl of goo, speaking in a warm tone, “Did you rest like I asked you to?”

Coran nods, twisting his mustache at hand as he sits upright in his chair, “Why yes I did, thank you very much, Princess. I have the breakthrough of energy needed to check on those flaxum alignments today!”

I groan with a wave of my spoon, “Dear God, Coran. After this week, you deserve a vacation.”

Coran briskly shakes his head as he straightens his jacket, leaning on one foot with a heel perched, “There is no rest for the Coranic, now, Number four!” 

Lance suddenly gasps dramatically where he sits next to Keith with his half eaten goo, “Wait a minute, I thought Will was Number five?”

I blink and raise an eyebrow, “Was I?” 

Coran nods, his arms crossed with a slightly put off expression, “Yes, well, it appears my visual calculations were incorrect. It’s difficult to determine with one good look…”

Hunk raises an eyebrow, “So wait, who’s moved down, then?” 

Shiro smiles charismatically at the head of the table, “Well, it’s not a  _ ranking  _ system.”

“No no no, tell us, Coran,” Lance waves at Shiro as he leans forward on his palms, looking at Coran with full attention, “What’s the order?” 

Coran raises an eyebrow at Lance and then continues with a bit of a clueless expression, “Shiro, Hunk, and then you, Will, Keith-”

“HA!” Lance shrieks, falling back in his chair as he flashes Keith a wicked grin and points a finger accusingly, “You’re second shortest now!” 

“Oh no, what a nightmare.” Pidge grumbles under her breath where she sits beside me. 

“So did you grow?” Hunk asks me with a raised eyebrow and an inquisitive expression before he glances over at Keith, “Or did  _ you  _ shrink?”

Keith has been sitting with his arms crossed with a broody look up until this moment, he merely waves a hand with a monotonous voice, “Does it really matter?” 

“Ahuh, sure, whatever you say,  _ short stuff. _ ” Lance grins wickedly with a cocked eyebrow at Keith like he has to get his snark and sass stuffed into one sentence and one look alone. 

Keith huffs and shoots Lance a hard look, “I’m not  _ short!  _ I’m 5’7!”

“And  _ I’m  _ 5’10, so checkmate!” Lance declares with a smile that seems to stretch to every facet of his straightened posture.

“Well maybe it’s a puberty thing!” Hunk interrupts with a sheepish tone, glancing over at me curiously, “You’re still in high school, right?”

I blink at Hunk incredulously, “Yeah, I’m a senior, I turned eighteen back in April.”

“Alright, so you’re practically grown.” Lance waves a hand dismissively towards me.

I smirk a bit and raise an eyebrow at him, “You know I had to go through puberty twice, right?” 

“Details, details!” Lance blows a raspberry at me before he whirls on Keith, “How old are you? When’s your birthday?”

Keith clams, his arms crossing tighter across his chest as he scowls at the table, purposefully avoiding any gazes, “Uh… October.” 

I blink, “Whoa wait, what day? Was it before or after we left Earth?” 

Keith’s gaze flickers up to mine only for a beat before it slides away again without answering. Shiro, upon noticing this, answers for him, “He turns eighteen on the 23rd.” 

Keith shoots Shiro a pointed look but otherwise looks more embarrassed than pissed. Shiro flashes him a well meaning smile.

“HA!  _ And  _ I’m older!” Lance proclaims with double joy, reclining back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head, “Things are really turning up Lance today.”

“Wait a minute, that could be any day now!” Hunk gasps suddenly, his eyes going wide as he clasps his hands together, “Oh my crow, we haven’t missed it, have we? How long have we been up here?”

Pidge raises an eyebrow and nods in agreement, “Yeah, what day is it anyway? I don’t know how we could get access to information like that, I don’t suppose you have a calendar?” Pidge asks with a look towards Coran and Allura. 

Coran shakes his head with another twist of his mustache, “Unless your planet conforms to the decafeebian calendar, then I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

I blink and start, standing up from the table, “I have my planner back in my room, it’s got a calendar in it!” 

“This is really not necessary-” Keith begins to mumble before Lance abruptly cuts him off, “ _ Buh-buh-buh-buh!  _ No, we’re settling this, I wanna know  _ exactly  _ how much older I am than you.”

“Alright first we gotta find out how many days we’ve been here. Pidge?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow as I turn and head back to my room at a brisk pace, leaving them to figure it out. I dig through my backpack frantically and grab the discarded book quickly, hustling back to the table once I have it at hand. Conner used to make fun of me constantly for having a paper planner since everyone uses online calendars and stuff now but I like the paper ones because then I get to cross off days as they go by. Gives me a sense of time actually passing, which I appreciate when school is just  _ dragging _ .

When I rush back to the dining room the others are practically yelling at each other around the table as they compare numbers, however as soon as I’m at the table they hush and look at me expectantly. Pidge delivers the verdict: “Twenty. We’ve been out here twenty days. Including today.”

“And we left on Monday.” I murmur as I flip to October in the calendar section, trailing my gaze down the rows. I’d crossed off the days I’d gone to school, so Friday the 8th is where the scratches stopped. I count under my breath up to twenty before my index finger rests on the day, “It’s October 29th.”

“Aww, it’s already passed.” Hunk pouts with a sad look thrown over at Keith, who merely sits with his arms crossed over his chest and a set expression. Keith looks over at Shiro who immediately meets his gaze, some unspoken conversation passes between them before Keith turns away again with a deeper set in his furrowed eyebrows. Hunk then shrugs nonchalantly, “But hey, at least Halloween’s coming up!” 

“More importantly, I’m taller  _ and  _ older than Keith.” Lance proclaims, his shit eating grin is broad and merciless as he glances over at Keith’s expression, a carefully made mask that gives Lance a brooding, ill-mannered look. 

I regard the others for a moment as I lean on the back of a chair, finally letting my gaze settle on Keith after a long moment’s silence, “Well, so what if your birthday’s already passed? We finally have a break to breathe, we can celebrate it now.”

Hunk nods in agreement, his hands drumming excitedly on the table, “Yeah man! I, personally, have been  _ dying  _ for a chance to make a cake with all these Altean ingredients and stuff-”

Keith immediately balks, his eyes go wide as he looks around at everyone in the room before he stammers, “I don’t… we shouldn’t get distracted from training-”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Shiro says with a familial tone, regarding Keith warmly. Keith glances over at him with a raised eyebrow as Shiro continues, “We’ll have plenty of time to train. If Coran’s correct, we still have another day or two before we reach the Blade of Marmora’s base.” Shiro raises an eyebrow over at the man in question for confirmation.

Coran immediately nods, “Yes, yes, the scaultrite lenses have been put in position, however there are still many parts of the teludav which require repair after the beating it took, as well as all the tests I need to run to ensure it’s operating smoothly, so I’ll need at least another three quintants.”

Shiro nods briskly before he glances back over at Keith with a softer look, “Besides, it’s a big deal. We should definitely celebrate.” 

Allura raises an eyebrow, turning to us with a questioning gaze, “Is this… Birth Day, what is its significance?”

Pidge pushes up her glasses, “It’s the day he was born, which was apparently eighteen years ago. We celebrate it every year as a  _ ‘congratulations, you survived another year!’ _ ”

“That’s a… morbid way of putting it.” Shiro says with a sheepish expression.

“I see!” Coran’s eyes brighten as he straightens at the head of the table, “We have something similar, save it’s the day of an Altean’s conception-” 

Immediately I wave my hand at him to cut him off, “Please, I beg you, do  _ not  _ elaborate on that.”

Coran purses his lips, visibly quelled as Allura continues after only a brief pause, “- So how do you celebrate it?”

“It depends.” Shiro glances over at Keith with a raised eyebrow, nonverbally asking for his input. 

Keith huffs softly, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, “I don’t have birthday parties.”

This immediately sends a stab into my gut.  _ Aww, man.  _ “Well not this year.” I state firmly, my hands planted on the back of a chair across the table from him, “Sorry, you’re just gonna have to bear with us being happy about your existence for the day. Think you can manage that?”

Keith’s eyes are wide and stunned and for a second my gay heart stops beating, right as Pidge shifts in her seat to my right, “Is there anything you like to do for fun, or something?” Pidge asks, her chin rested in her hand as she regards Keith across the table, “Besides fighting robots on the training deck?”

Keith flushes a little at this, flickering his gaze back and forth at our expectant gazes before he exclaims with a note of frustration, “I-I don’t know!”

“It’s alright, don’t worry guys, I got this.” Lance flashes a charming smile as he rises from the table, holding his hands aloft like he’s a preacher about to deliver the homily, “I’ve got fourteen cousins and four siblings, I’ve seen more than my fair share of birthday parties, I  _ know  _ how to make this perfect.” Lance aims finger guns at Hunk, who’s practically on the edge of his seat, “Hunk, get started on a birthday cake, stat!”

“I’m on it, sir!” Hunk salutes crisply before he leaps to his feet in excitement, hauling ass to the doorway.

“Pidge, can you make a pinata?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow. 

I can’t help but snort, “He’s turned  _ eighteen _ , Lance, not ten.” Lance shoots me a peeved look, to which I helpfully grin in response.

“ _ Oh  _ idea!” Pidge suddenly sits up on her chair on her knees, planting her hands on the table, “Altean pool party!” 

Lance gasps dramatically, “ _ Dangit Pidge _ , I was just  _ getting to that! _ ” 

“Sounds like fun.” Shiro says with a charismatic grin, glancing over at Keith with a raised eyebrow. Keith flickers his gaze to each of us before they rest on Shiro, and after a moment he lets out a breath and shrugs, “I still think we shouldn’t get distracted from-”

“Yeah, no, sorry Keith, but you have no choice on the matter.” Lance says with a deft shake of his head. After a moment he pauses and raises a finger, “Okay so first, we gotta decorate the place.” As we begin to rise Lance whirls towards Keith, poking his chest, “Which means _no birthday boy_ _at the pool_ until it’s all ready.” 

“I’ll keep him distracted.” Shiro looks to be on the cusp of laughing, his smile is unceasing and his gaze is warm. Keith furrows his eyebrows at Shiro and crosses his arms, frankly he’s just  _ oozing  _ brooding discomfort at this point, it’s almost hilarious. 

“Perfect.” Lance waves a hand towards the rest of us, “Will, Pidge, Princess, you’re with me! We gotta get some decorations! The Castle’s gotta have streamers, right? Balloons?”

Allura blinks as we walk out of the room and leave Shiro and Keith behind, taking a turn down the hall, “Balloons yes, we keep those near the engine room. Streamers… Perhaps? If not then I can see if the troussenna can make them.” 

Pidge raises an eyebrow as she turns towards Allura, “The trou-what now?”

“Troussenna.” Allura repeats, clasping her hands in her lap, “Essentially it’s a… tailor, I suppose. It’s how we made your clothes.” She gestures to me as I take up walking beside her as if case in point. 

Immediately I gasp, “Whoa, I  _ fucking knew  _ you guys had something like that! You’ve gotta show me how it works, I can’t wear white anymore, Allura, I can’t stand it! I need some fuckin’ color in my life!” 

“Oh, you know what would be cool?” Lance turns around to walk backwards as we head in some direction, I’m not sure where as I’m just following, “If we all got matching Voltron jerseys, with numbers and our names on the back!” 

I raise an eyebrow and smirk a little, “When would we wear them? And what would the numbers even be for?” 

Lance rolls his eyes at me, “You’re so  _ nitpicky _ , can’t we have jerseys because they’re  _ cool? _ ”

“No one thinks jerseys are cool.” Pidge huffs, “That would also imply that we’re a sports team. Which is laughable, I mean.” She gestures to our general collective. 

Lance gasps in offense, touching a hand to his chest as he turns to walk forward again, “Hey! I played soccer when I was six!” 

I raise a hand, “Uh, yeah, speak for yourself, I was on a field hockey team up until I came to Texas.” I look up towards Lance and continue with a wide grin, “And with that in mind, I agree: no one thinks jerseys are cool.” 

Lance huffs, the tips of his ears turning pink, “You guys are really harshing my vibe!”

“There are balloons in here.” Allura pipes up after a moment, pausing beside a room in the hall. The doors open into what looks kind of like what would be a vacuum closet with neat shelves, only big enough for two to three people to fit comfortably inside. Allura goes in and pushes her hands into some containers before she produces what looks like a bag of unblown, white balloons, holding it out to us, “Is this what you mean?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Lance cries, snatching the bag from her hands before giving her a charming smile and wink combo,  _ “Thanks, Princess.” _

“Um, so question that’s a little late, but why do you have balloons?” Pidge asks, tilting her head as Allura continues to shift through containers, I can’t see their contents but they sound heavy. 

“They’re excellent protective units for transferring Balmeran crystals, specifically the kind that power the particle barrier.” Allura answers helpfully, straightening as she produces what look like two sets of tongs from the box, “And streamers.” 

We blink at the tong-like things and collectively shake our heads. “No no,  _ streamers _ .” Lance says, waving his arms like they’re noodles, “Like, long, papery, colorful things that you can tape to stuff?” 

“Oh.” Allura purses her lips before she shakes her head, “I cannot think of anything like that aboard the Castle. But I can see if the troussenna can recreate something like it?” 

“Sounds like a plan.” Lance states with a brisk nod, waggling his eyebrows at us as his voice drops a quarter octave, “I’ll go with the Princess to the troo thingy, you guys head to the pool and blow up the balloons.” 

Pidge’s expression is deadpan and absolutely empty of amusement. “We don’t know where the pool is.” 

“Yeah, same.” I say, raising a hand, “I also kinda wanna see the thing… and you know, maybe get some not white clothes?”

Lance narrows his eyes at me accusingly and opens his mouth to argue just as Allura cuts in, smiling gently, “Why don’t we all go together?” 

“Right!” Pidge perks up, moving now to follow Allura. Lance gives the both of us dirty looks as we go, scowling slightly. 

I elbow him in the ribs, “Oh, lighten up!” Lance makes a face at me and grumbles nonethesame, but it seems like he lacks the genuine fire behind it so I let it alone and continue to follow Allura. 

We arrive to a room that I’ve never seen before, much like an IRM room at a hospital. There’s a machine in the center with a long tube in the middle that looks large enough for a person could lay in, and a set of holographic panels laid at the bottom. Allura walks around it and taps on one of these panels, bringing up a massive menu of options in Altean. With a few deft taps the words shimmer and morph into English. 

“Hey, how’d you do that?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at Allura. She gives me a clueless look before I elaborate, “Make it be in English? Can you still read it?” 

“Yes!” Allura nods, smiling at me as she points to the button she selected, “It’s a method similar to transladazine technology that it allows for the same message to be reflective of the preferred language for each person.”

“Fascinating.” Pidge murmurs beside me, dropping to her knees to investigate the panel further. 

“So how long should these streamers be?” Allura asks, selecting a stream of options that I don’t get the chance to see. 

“Super long! I’m talking, like… 50 feet!” Lance holds his arms out wide to show case in point.

Allura blinks with wide eyes, “What size of feet?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose,  _ “Goddamnit.”  _ I gesture to the ceiling, “Make it long enough that we can circle the ceiling three times.” I glance over at Lance with a raised eyebrow, “Is that enough?”

Lance looks at the ceiling for several seconds before he flashes me a thumbs up. Allura glances up and nods, typing in a number before she glances at us, “And how thin?” 

“Like paper.” I say, making the miniscule amount with my fingertips, “Kinda durable but easily ripped.” 

“Oh! And make it red!” Pidge suddenly pipes up, standing upright with bright eyes, “Like the Red Lion!”

I can’t help but cover a hand over my chest with a sniffle, “ _ That’s so cute.  _ Good thinking, Pidge.”

Allura nods seriously and then dismisses the hologram; the machine rumbles to life. We watch as bright red streamers race around the inside of the tube before coiling itself up like invisible hands are wrapping them, the bottom of the tube beginning to move like a conveyor belt. The thick roll rests once it’s been wrapped up, getting carried by the belt until it reaches the open air end of the tube. Allura picks it up and holds it out to Lance like she’s bearing a precious apple, “Will this suffice?”

“Heck yeah it will!” Lance exclaims, taking the roll and tossing it in the air experimentally before he flashes Allura a tell tale charming grin,  _ “Thanks, Princess.” _

“Alright, let’s go blow up some balloons and hang some streamers!” Pidge exclaims before she suddenly pauses, glancing at Allura sheepishly, “Wait… do you guys have tape?” 

_ I guess I’ll come back to get some not white clothes at another time. _

It takes several minutes of hunting through the sporadic vacuum closets through out the Castle until we find a close second to tape, an adhesive sticker the size of a pad of my fingertips. Then, finally, I get to see the Altean pool for the first time, and I’ve got to say it was not what I was expecting.

The most notable thing being that the actual pool part is on the ceiling.

“What the fuck?” I say as I peer up before glancing over at Allura with a completely confused look. 

“Oh, that’s just when it’s magnetized for travel.” Allura says with a chuckle, walking over to the side wall and tapping on a hidden holographic panel. We take a startled step back as the floor gives away, pushing downward until what looks to me is an empty pool directly under the pool in the ceiling. Then, with a sudden, crashing thunder the water over our heads splashes down, filling the pool with massive waves nearly soaking us before we are able to stumble backwards and out of the way. 

“Ah!” Pidge shrieks as she practically scales my body and perches her feet on my hip to hide behind me when the water gets up. The sudden weight nearly sends me crashing into Lance and into the wall but by some miracle I stay standing. When the waters settle she pops off of me like she didn’t just climb me like a tree, turning towards Allura with a raised eyebrow, “Why don’t you magnetize it to the floor?”

“It would be impossible to swim in, then.” Allura answers, waving her hands to dismiss the holographic panel. 

“Wow, gorgeous  _ and  _ smart, what a package.” Lance says in a tone that’s so obviously dreamy that I reach over and elbow him. He gives me a confused look and I merely peer back with a  _ can you not  _ expression. Allura merely regards Lance without any change in expression, pleasantly smiling with a soft expression.

“Let’s get started on these balloons and streamers!” Pidge says quickly, taking the scarlet streamers from Lance’s hands and waving her hand towards an expressionless Allura, “Will you help me tape these up?”

“We’ll get started on the balloons.” I say with a hand on Lance’s shoulder, opening the bag of balloons and holding it out to him. We plop down on the floor and get started, blowing balloons and then tying them off to be discarded to the side until they’re ready to be adhered to the wall. As we go, I keep finding my thoughts flickering back to the breakfast table.  _ Damn, has Keith really never celebrated his birthday before? He’s never talked about what it was like for him growing up, but based on my limited knowledge of him I can guess that it wasn’t great. But never a party? I’m gonna have to throw hands with whoever his caregivers were supposed to be for never throwing him one. Although, in all fairness, it doesn’t seem like he’s much of a party person… Except Olkarion would beg to differ. _

_ Whoop, nope, let’s not think about that! I’m gay enough as it is! _

I glance up and watch Lance’s furrowed eyebrows as he blows up the balloon at hand, his face is flushed and as red as the streamers Pidge and Allura are hanging.  _ I’m glad to see he’s been taking care of Kaltenecker. Not gonna lie, I totally forgot we had her until he mentioned it today, so I’m extra glad he hasn’t. But he said she’s not doing well, and that worries me. Cows are pretty low maintenance, not like horses, but there are some things that need to be done that make sure they’re happy and healthy. Maybe we’re just missing one of those things. _

“Hey, Lance?” I say suddenly, tossing a balloon aside once I’m done blowing it up, “Can we go check on Kaltenecker?”

Lance, upon meeting my gaze, nods a little as he finishes tying off his balloon, “I mean, sure? Why?” 

“I was just thinking about it, and I want to see if I can figure out what’s up with her.” With sudden fresh purpose I stand up and brush myself off, turning over my shoulder to call out to Pidge and Allura, “Hey guys, we’re gonna go check on Kaltenecker. You good here?”

Pidge is currently perched on Allura’s shoulders with the streamers at hand, Allura’s hands on her ankles to keep her steady. Allura doesn’t turn to keep Pidge upright but Pidge does, she presses a hand flat on the wall as she twists to peer at us disapprovingly, “Hey, you can’t go running off when we’re in the middle of decorating!” 

“We’ll be right back, promise.” I reply before turning and nudging Lance, “Lead on.”

Lance gives me a strange look before he and I walk out of the room and down the hall, where he leads me down a path I’d never taken before past the hangers.  _ I sure hope that he was serious about putting Kaltenecker in a place that isn’t a cage. I mean, I know we don’t have a whole ass field for her to graze on because we’re in space, but she needs a sizable amount of room to walk around in so she doesn’t grow depressed.  _ He stops at a large doorway and opens it with a touch of his hand to the holographic panel to the right, opening to reveal a large, expansive meadow, speckled with pink and purple flowers. I blink in shock as I walk in, raising an eyebrow as I turn around in circles. It looks like we just came through a random doorway in the middle of a massive valley, it looks so much like we’re on a planet’s surface that the only thing that keeps me from believing it is the open doorway back from where we came in. The sky is bright, clear and blue without a cloud in sight, low rising hills surrounding us in the nestle of a valley. In the middle of the meadow is a run-in where stands Kaltenecker, munching on a bale of hay resting beside her and a bucket of water beside it. As soon as we come in Kaltenecker raises her head and makes a low mooing sound, shuffling towards us with a weird gate, like her legs are locked.  _ They don’t look broken or sprained though, that’s not how she’d walk if she were lame either…  _

“Yeah, see, this is the weird part I was talking about.” Lance says to me with a wave of his hand towards the hobbling cow, his expression is etched in concern, “Like, before she didn’t even look up at me when I came in. I thought she was just being friendly at first, but then she gets kinda aggressive-” He pauses as Kaltenecker approaches us, immediately she pushes her head between us with a loud moo and then stops, standing directly in between us. She turns and gives me a woeful look with her soft brown eyes, and what immediately worries me is the gloss over them, they’re dull and lifeless,  _ a sign that she’s in pain.  _

“That’s… weird.” I murmur, reaching out and scratching in between her horns. Her eyes flutter shut slightly before she stamps a hoof in the grass, raising her head and abruptly letting out a low, echoing moo through the space. Lance and I share a look before I take a step back and kneel beside her with a hand on her flank to examine her legs, and that’s when I see her utters; they’re obviously swollen and an angry red, it hurts just  _ looking  _ at them. 

“Oh Jesus Christ, she’s got mastitis!” I sit back on my heels with a curled nose as Lance leans his arms on Kaltenecker’s back to look down at me. 

“She’s what?” Lance asks with a confused look and a raised eyebrow.

“Mastitis.” I reply, slowly running my hand down her stomach with an eye out of the corner of my eye at her face to gauge her reaction. She twitches and swathes her tail side to side, but she doesn’t move to run away. “She must be a dairy cow.” I murmur. Finally I look back up at Lance, resting my elbows on my knees, “Have you been milking her?”

“Wait, what? No! Why would I do that?” Lance declares with a grossed out expression, moving now to round Kaltenecker with a hand on her neck to keep her still. Now that we’re by her she doesn’t seem all that agitated, but she is most certainly in pain, based on her belly clenching like this.  _ Weird that she walked over to us, I wouldn’t expect a cow with mastitis to move at all. Maybe she knows that she’s supposed to be milked.  _ I gently pet her flank as I stand.  _ Clever girl.  _

“Dairy cows specifically have gotta be milked every other day or so, like a sheep has to get shorn.” I glance over at Lance briefly as I chew on my lip, frantically thinking at a lightning fast pace,  _ come on memory don’t fail me now, how do you treat mastitis again? _

“Oh.” Lance says with a blank expression before he raises an eyebrow, “How do you know all this stuff?”

“My grandpapa lives on a farm.” I answer simply, petting Kaltenecker’s back affectionately. She hangs her head slightly, her shoulders are tense under my hands.  _ What would papa do? I remember, Juju got mastitis once, I think… Oh!  _

“Lance, go get a bucket.” I say with a gesture of my chin towards the doorway, “And ask Allura or Coran if there are antibiotics and painkillers, or something like it, on the ship somewhere.” 

Lance blinks at me and looks between Kaltenecker and I before he nods seriously, as he turns on heel he flashes me a winning grin, “Talk to the princess, grab some pills and a bucket. On it, don’t have to tell me twice!” 

I roll my eyes and wave him off, “And take your straight nonsense with you!” I don’t see him leave as I round Kaltenecker and hold her jaw to examine her face. She looks at me with a dull light in her eyes, they appear otherwise healthy, but she is not helping me hold her head up, I’m bearing almost her whole head alone now that it’s at hand. Hay clings to the moisture collected around her nose and mouth, which I wipe away as I scratch under her jawline affectionately. “Don’t worry, girl, Lance is on it.” I murmur, moving to scratch her ears. She seems to appreciate this, as she raises her head a little so I’m not holding her entirely in my arms. 

A few minutes later Lance arrives with a bucket at hand and much to my shock, Keith and Shiro, who come bearing what looks like two white tubes, like a plunger for a syringe. 

“Hey birthday boy.” I call teasingly as I turn towards the entering trio, “Shiro, how’s that  _ distraction _ coming?” 

Keith rolls his eyes with a peeved expression. Shiro glances over at him before he turns to me with a winning smile, “We were helping Hunk on the cake when he sent us off so he could do the decorating. That’s when Lance came in looking for a bucket, so we figured you might need help.”  _ Smiling is something that really suits Shiro. I’m glad I’m getting to see it more often. _

“I think I may.” I say while biting my lip. Lance hands me the bucket once they’re within the meadowed room, and with a soft breath I get on my knees at Kaltenecker’s side and set the bucket under her udders.  _ God, they look so red and angry, she must be in a lot of pain. Who knows how long this infection has been festering?  _

“Here’s the meds.” Keith says as I rise to my feet, handing me the two plungers. I look at it and narrow my eyes, giving him a clueless look. He looks at me with an equally clueless expression before he realizes my confusion and points, “It’s like an epipen, you stab it.” 

“Of course you’d know all about stabbing.” Lance jokes, leaning his arm on Kaltenecker’s shoulder, gesturing to the knife at Keith’s back. I look down at the plunger for some type of button to press. 

Keith bristles and shoots him a glare, “Hey, I don’t  _ stab  _ people with it!”

“Then what’s it for?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow, mostly teasingly but his tone underlies a genuine question. 

I turn away from the pair with the plunger and state, “Yell at each other later, which one is the antibiotic?” Keith points to the one in my left hand. “Kay,” I mutter, holding it out to him, “Hold this for me, I’m stabbing the cow with the pain meds first. Clear.” I press the plunge part into the fleshy part of her shoulder. Kaltenecker starts with her ears up but after a moment she settles, raising her head a little as she glances back at me with a moony gaze, like she’s saying  _ hey, whatcha do that for?  _ I rinse and repeat with the antibiotic, to which she once again starts but doesn’t otherwise flinch. I reward her with some scratches between the horns.

“Alright.” I say with a huff, turning back to the trio, “Shiro, can you get that hay bale and hold it for her so she has something to distract herself?” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow at me and then at Kaltenecker before he nods, walking towards the run-in. I turn to Keith and Lance, “Lance, can you make sure she stays calm? Just pet her, and… you know, make sure she doesn’t kick me or something.” 

“What are you gonna do that you think she’s gonna kick?” Lance asks with an incredulous note, now hugging Kaltenecker’s head with a pleading look at me like I’m the one that might kick her. 

“We’ve gotta get the infected milk out.” I say as I take a steeling breath, kneeling down at Kaltenecker’s side as Shiro returns with the hay at hand, holding it by the strings with his prosthetic like he’s carrying a pizza box, which is crazy to see since it’s about half as big as he is. Kaltenecker sniffs Shiro, who looks largely put off by the sudden cow nose in his face, before she rips out some hay to chew on. 

Lance pets her head comfortingly, giving me a look from the other side of Kaltenecker, “That’s just gross sounding.  _ Infected milk. Yeuck. _ You sure you know what you’re doing?”  

I rub my hands together to warm them up, only giving Lance a look over my shoulder before I reach out and grasp Kaltenecker’s utters. She immediately starts with a sudden, sharp groan of surprise but fortunately for me she doesn’t shift in her feet, but unfortunately for Lance she tosses her head and sends him falling backwards with a yelp. The milk that spills into the bucket is yellowed and watery, immediately producing an odor that I can only describe as hellish. I cough and shift for a better position on my knees. 

“So you know your way around animals?” Shiro’s voice says over my shoulder with a note of curiosity, I glance over my shoulder to look at him holding the hay bale, his expression is intrigued and attentive. 

“My grandpapa lives on a farm.” I answer again, curling my nose as Kaltenecker twitches, nearly spills the milk, that’s more pus than anything else, over the lip of the bucket.  _ Close call. God, this smells so bad.  _ Kaltenecker snatches some more hay and munches on it like it has personally wronged her, nearly capsizing Shiro from the sudden tug.

“I lived on a farm for two years but I never learned how to milk a cow.” Keith replies with a slight edge of incredulousness, I can see his hand as he pulls Lance off the ground where he fell. He complains loudly but without clarity, save for a clear  _ Mullet _ in between his garbled words. 

“Er, well,” I smile shyly, adjusting my grip, “I wanted to be a vet for a little while, so I followed him around when he cared for the animals and stuff. I liked the horses a lot more.” I start as the stream grows unsteady, I readjust my hold to keep the draining continuous, the bucket’s about a fourth full. “That dream died quickly when I realized I had to deal with blood and gore and stuff. I don’t like it… makes me queasy.” 

Lance snorts, laughing outright as this as he returns to petting Kaltenecker’s head, who has now calmed significantly much to my relief, “That’s hilarious, considering you’ve bled more than everyone on this ship combined.”

“Hey Lance?” I respond, flickering my gaze up to him briefly, “Keep talking and I’ll make you drink this.” 

Immediate dry retching reaches my ears as I return to the task at hand. Fortunately it seems I’d gotten almost all of it, after a minute or two it becomes a bare trickle. The skin is still angry and red but the swelling has decreased significantly, much to my relief. With a breath I didn’t realize I was holding I shift, moving the heavy, half filled bucket out from beneath Kaltenecker slowly before setting it well out of the way, grateful that the slow movements didn’t send any of the stomach clenching contents sloshing out. I dust myself off and stretch upright to return some feeling to my shoulders. “Alright.” I say with a huff, wiping my hands on my pants, “Lance, we’re gonna have to keep milking her a few times a day for the next few days to make sure the infection clears out. With the meds, I think she’ll be back to normal soon.” 

“Thanks, doc.” Shiro replies with a teasing lilt as he turns to return the hay bale to the run-in. Kaltenecker moves to follow him with a plaintive moo, she’s already walking more normally now, much to my relief. 

“Yuck.” Keith grumbles, peering down into the lip of the bucket with a curled lip. 

I raise an eyebrow at him with a teasing smirk, touching the handle with two fingers, “Happy birthday. Want your present?”

Keith gives me a disgusted look and immediately takes several retreating steps back, right as Lance moves to shove him towards the bucket. Fortunately he’s moving just in time so that instead they’re both sent stumbling to the grass beside it, Lance immediately shrieks on impact, “Agh- _ Mullet _ - _!  _ Get _ off _ -”

“You’re on  _ me! _ ” Keith cries before he kicks Lance in the stomach, pushing him to the ground beside him where they now rest like two kids sitting in the grass in between field day activities, glaring at each other with a genuine lack of fire. I snort and shake my head with a loud laugh.

“So,” Shiro says as he approaches, dusting his hands off of leftover hay, “How’s party decorations going?” 

“Got a little distracted.” Lance grumbles, pulling himself to his feet as Keith too rises. 

“I’m sure they’re getting close to done.” I reply, resting a hand on my waist. 

“Let’s go check it out.” Shiro says with a hand on Lance’s shoulder once he’s up, turning towards the door.

“I’ll be right behind you, just gonna go dump this out.” I say as I turn back from them to look at the smelly bucket.  _ Ngh, that’s just nasty. And heavy, too. I hope to God I don’t accidentally dump this on me, God, what a nightmare that would be.  _ I shudder just thinking about it.

“I’ll help.” I raise an eyebrow at Keith as he approaches, flickering his gaze to the handle and then to me. Upon seeing my perplexed expression as well as Shiro’s and Lance’s he elaborates, “So uh… I don’t see what’s going on until you guys are uh… you know. Ready.” 

“Good idea!” Lance declares with a firm thumbs up, flashing me a cocky grin, “You keep him distracted while we finish up.” 

“Oh yeah, will do.” I roll my eyes with a sassy grin, “With my infected milk bucket.”

“ _ Gah _ that’s  _ gross. _ ” Lance shudders with his tongue stuck out in disgust.

Shiro, much to my annoyance, flickers his gaze between Keith and I before smiling just a  _ little too  _ broadly, giving us a thumbs up before he turns to Lance, “Alright, lets go check on those decorations.” 

As they head towards the door Keith turns to me with a raised eyebrow, “So, where are we taking this?” 

I tap my lips thoughtfully before grinning with a teasing tone, “Airlock?” 

Keith looks at me then down at the bucket before he nods, “There  _ are _ more buckets.”

I glance down at the bucket as well before shuddering, “I was joking but… Alright, well I’m tired of smelling this thing,  _ God  _ it’s disgusting. Fuck it, come on.” Keith reaches down and we grasp either side of the bucket handle and walk out step in step at a slow pace to keep the contents from sloshing out. 

“Sorry,” I mutter as we’re out and making our way down the hallway, “This probably isn’t the greatest thing to be doing on your birthday…” 

“I offered to help.” Keith answers curtly as we go, running his free hand’s fingers through his bangs to push them out of his eyes, “Besides… not the worst birthday I’ve had.” 

I can’t help but frown a little at this, “How so?” 

Keith merely shakes his head, chuckling without humor, “Nothing bad. Let’s just say that, even up until now, it’s leagues better than what I uh… expected.”

We turn down the hall with some concentrated effort, and once we’re back in rhythm I let out a breath, “Hey, we care about you. Of course we’re gonna take a day to celebrate.” 

I glance over at Keith as we go and see his eyes are distant with a dimple between his furrowed eyebrows. After a moment he murmurs, “Yeah. Not really used to that.” 

“Well, you better get started getting used to it.” I tease with a lopsided grin. Ahead I see the large airlock door on this side of the Castle, and with a loud noise of relief I huff, “Thank God, we’re almost there. This stuff is about to make me throw up.” 

“Now that’s a present I  _ really _ don’t want.” Keith counters with a wry smirk. 

I struggle to keep my hand steady as I laugh, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye as we set it down just outside the door, “Did you just crack a joke? Has becoming an  _ official adult  _ made your broodiness wear off?”

Keith goes to the holographic panel next to the door, opening it with a tap as he glances back at me with furrowed eyebrows and an indignant huff, “I’m  _ not broody. _ ”

“Keep telling yourself that.” I joke with a smirk as I pick the disgusting bucket up carefully and then set it inside the room, quickly righting myself and hustling out as Keith shuts the door again. We watch as the door outside of the Castle opens and the bucket is sucked violently out into space, the contents getting slung like thrown powder into space in fat globs.  _ God, that’s just disgusting. _

“I hate the poor bastard’s ship who runs into  _ that _ .” I tease, turning back towards Keith as I dust my hands off. 

Keith chuckles, peering out the glass as the airlock doors close once more, “Ha, yeah.”

He turns back to look at me and my heart stammers for a second, now that I’m not immediately occupied.  _ Damn, I got so caught up in doing stuff I forgot I was gay for Keith. That’s something.  _ He meets my gaze evenly with a slight glint in his eyes that flicker across my features so intensely that for a moment the hall is quiet,  _ really really  _ quiet, I could hear the Altean mice’s pulses if they were close by that’s how quiet it is. I can’t even form a coherent thought, I’m just lost in his eyes, they’re a blue grey in the steely light like a mockingbird’s wings.  _ Wow. He’s pretty. Oh man, I’m gay. _

I realize then that we’ve been staring at one another for a solid few seconds without a word. “Erm, so,” I begin, right as Keith speaks at the same time, “Will I-” Both of us stop and look at each other for a little longer until Keith suddenly cuts off, his eyes gravitating to the floor. He looks like he’s having an internal debate, one of his fingertips rest on the edge of his belt at his waist with his knife sheathed in the back. When he doesn’t continue I clear my throat as I glance back from hence we came, “Let’s go check and see if they’re ready for you at the pool yet, yeah?”

Keith’s face is dusted rose in a manner that makes my heart leap into my throat, his eyes falling off to the side and down the hall, “Uh… Yeah, I guess we should.” 

_ Why does this feel awkward as hell? Let’s try and alleviate it a bit. _ “Why so shy all of a sudden?” I tease, poking his arm with my elbow as I turn to head down the hall, “Come on.” Keith hesitates before he falls in step with me as we head back, and I don’t risk a glance over to see his expression.  _ Geez, that was intense. I can’t even say for sure how or why. What’s he thinking about right now? _

As we approach we’re greeted with the others, Pidge, Lance, Shiro, Allura, and Hunk, all leaving the pool room at once. Pidge, Allura, and Hunk are in what I suppose are swimsuits, they have that material appearance; Pidge’s got green trunks with white hems and a black t-shirt, Hunk has dandelion yellow trunks,  _ wow, shocking _ , and Allura has what looks like those one piece suits that were really popular in the 2050’s, the ones with the swooped back and the shorts. Her hair is pinned up on the top of her head, a braid curling around her shoulder. Lance and Shiro are in the clothes we saw them earlier, and even from here as we approach I can see how red Lance’s face is, as red as the streamers clinging to the underside of his boots. 

Pidge spots us as we approach and waves, “Hey, we were just about to go looking for you!”

Lance perks at our approach and waves, “Yeah, it’s party time! Come on, get your trunks on and we’ll get this  _ crunk  _ on!” 

I snicker as I move to follow them with a shake of my head, “What does that even  _ mean? _ ”

“It means we’re gonna get  _ crunk! _ ” Lance proclaims again, flashing me a pair of finger guns and a charming wink. I roll my eyes with a playful laugh, “Sure. Crunk.” 

Pidge, Hunk, and Allura duck back into the pool room with jovial expressions, Allura’s beaming like a kid on Christmas day. Honestly I’m shocked at how  _ childlike  _ Allura is behaving; not that it’s unnatural, it’s just so… unlike how she usually acts. She’s all queenly, highbrow, commander of the Voltron Alliance, but now she looks like she could be any other girl about to head to any other pool party. Honestly, it’s such a wonderful thing to see; she’s been so serious for so long that the thing I think she may have needed is a chance to let loose and not feel the need to be poised.

I duck to wash my hands before I head back to my room to see if there are any trunks in my drawers.  _ Where the hell would there be any? Did the others make them in the troussenna? No, Lance and Keith had them on before now, I remember the day Zarkon was chasing us across the universe they went to the pool. _ I pause when I see Lance’s door half open and immediately let out a breath,  _ he’s bound to know where they are. _

“Hey Lance?” I call as I approach the door, “Do you know where the trunks are kept?-” I poke my head into his room and freeze. 

Lance has his back to me, he’s already got his trunks on but that’s not what draws my attention; what does is the massive, blooming scar on his back, a pale pink against the dark chestnut of his skin with jagged edges that radiate from the center of his spine and out, reaching just over his shoulderblades and just above the dimples of his lower back, like an exploding star. 

“They’re in the very back of the third drawer!” Lance shouts as he rifles through his drawers in search for something, turning around with a shirt at hand. He freezes when he sees me standing in the doorway, I can feel my expression is slack in shock but I can’t seem to recollect myself enough to do anything about it, the pattern is firmly etched into my mind. 

“Dude, you look like you just saw a ghost.” Lance jests with a classic Lance-made smirk, twisting the shirt about to try and find the holes to stick his body through, for some reason having a hard time doing it. 

I step forward without any thought, my mouth is inexplicably dry as I murmur, “... Is that from the explosion?”

Lance stops his movements and then looks up at me with a closeted expression, one that I can’t quite read. I touch my fingertips to my lips as I take another step forward, my gaze is literally on his shoulder but in my mind’s eye I see Lance on the floor of the bridge, the lights are dim but his slacked expression is clear, the bleeding cut on his temple… 

“... Listen, I know, it’s ugly.” Lance says after a moment, his face is flushed red like he stuck it in an oven, “I hate looking at it, too-”

I reach out and slowly place a hand over his mouth. He blinks at me with a surprised expression but stops talking, when he does I let my hand fall. “It’s beautiful.” I murmur thoughtlessly, I’m not sure where the words are coming from but they feel completely true as I meet his oceanic gaze, “A testament to your strength.” 

Lance’s hands worm themselves into the shirt in his hands, tugging and pulling at the material like he’s kneading dough. Idly I wonder if he feels uncomfortable standing in front of me shirtless after the whole  _ argument  _ we had the other day but considering the circumstances I elect to ignore it. Finally he speaks with a hard edge in his voice, “Pfft, yeah,  _ strength. _ ” He says the word with disdain, his nose curled as he looks down at his hands bunched in the shirt, “More like it shows how weak I am.” 

I blink in surprise, staring at Lance’s expression with rapt attention as he starts to talk, words spilling out like a dumped water, “It’s a big, ugly mess to remind me of that time I let everyone down… When I let you and Shiro down.” His hands tighten on the shirt in his hand, his knuckles turning white as he lets out a frustrated sigh, “If I hadn’t gotten knocked out then maybe I could’ve helped you guys before Sendak got in the Castle. Before…”

“Lance.” I interrupt with a gentle tone, halting the flow of his words. He pauses and glances up at me with a hooded expression, the closest expression I’ve seen him make to vulnerable. “You’re  _ not  _ weak. You saved my life.  _ That scar _ is the consequence of you saving my life.” I set my jaw and let out a slow breath as emotion builds in my words against my consent.  _ That scar is the consequence of you saving my life. I practically gave you that scar. The scar that reminds you of that horrible night. Just like the scar on my hip but so much larger, so much… so impossible to hide. _ “Fact is, if you hadn’t protected me when you did, who fucking knows how that would’ve changed anything, if it even did. Thinking about those  _ what if _ ’s do nothing but hurt you, and believe me when I say that I know what the hell I’m talking about when I say that.” I pause as the phrase slips out without me meaning to, abruptly choking me off. Lance blinks at me with a stunned expression, and something about this look compels me to answer his unasked question, “... I still blame myself for what happened. Like, a lot. I think about it almost every day, if I hadn’t let Haxus get his knife on me then Shiro could’ve taken care of Sendak and none of what happened would have happened. But I’m realizing now that thinking about it doesn’t do anything except… hurt.” 

Lance’s voice is soft, “I didn’t know you felt like that.” I risk a glance up and see his eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes gentle and far away. 

I straighten a little and reach out, grabbing Lance’s forearm and speaking with more purpose, “It sucks, Lance. What happened fucking sucks. But we can’t bog ourselves down in what could’ve happened because that doesn’t do anything for us anymore.” Lance’s gaze falls so I tug on Lance’s arm a little to pull it back up to meet mine, “I think we’re really similar that way. And I don’t know about you but I’m  _ tired  _ of thinking about what could’ve been. Aren’t you?”

Lance watches me for a long time, his expression is mixed and twisted but after a few moments it finally seems to settle as his thoughts finish circulating. After a moment he lets out a breath, his shoulders sinking with it, “Yeah. Yeah I am.” 

I smile a little and grasp his shoulder tightly, “Your scar is freaking cool, Lance. You should be proud of it. You literally dove to protect me from a bomb, if that isn’t the sickest thing to show off, then what the fuck is?”

Much to my joy the light in Lance’s eyes seem to respark as I let my hand drop back to my sides. Lance glances down at the shirt in his hand before he tosses it over his shoulder and onto his chest of drawers behind him, he smirks in a classic, goofy, Lance fashion, “Yeah, it is pretty awesome, huh?”

“Fuck yeah it is. Just like you, dude.” I bump his shoulder with a fist before turning back towards his doorway, turning back only briefly with a hand on the doorframe, “See you at the pool in a minute?” 

Lance’s expression is soft, relaxed, “Yeah.” He replies, “In a minute.”

I give him a gentle look before I leave, closing the door behind me as I head into my room. A stone remains lodged at the base of my throat, Lance’s scar lingers behind my eyelids when I close my eyes.  _ “I hate looking at it, too.” _

_ Was there a time where Lance resented me for that? Did he wish he hadn’t dove to protect me? Upon seeing that scar, seeing that look he gave me, the hurt and the sadness… A part of me wishes he hadn’t either. Not if it caused him this.  _ _   
_ _ But what was the alternative? We both may have gotten blasted to hell. I’ve gotta take my own advice, don’t think about what could’ve been because it does nothing but hurt. Fuck.  _

I let out a soft breath and shake my head, pulling my shirt off over my head as I dig through my third drawer to find the trunks. I eventually find it buried under some folded shirts, and shocking  _ no one _ , it’s gray and white. Grumbling under my breath I pull them on, heading out to grab a towel from the showers before I head to the pool.  _ I’ve got to get Allura to show me how the troussenna works. I will not stand for this nonsense white only wardrobe for much longer. I am not here for it. Especially since, like Lance said, I’ve bled than anyone else on the ship, white stains like a motherfucker. God, now I sound like my mom.  _

When I walk into the pool the others have already gotten in, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura appear to be in an all out splashing war, there’s nothing but water swarms cascading around them with thundering roars as they douse one another. Shiro’s got a black shirt and black trunks with a towel around his neck where he stands with his back to the door with his arms crossed; he looks like the grim reaper as a lifeguard. Beside him is Keith. I freeze when I see his dark hair standing out like spilled ink on paper against his bare shoulders.  _ Oh goddamnit. Oh no. Oh NO I am gay. It’s okay, it’s okay, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a shirtless Keith, nothing to get flustered over, it’s okay, don’t gay panic, please, Will, for all that’s good in this world, do not go making a fucking big deal out of- _

“Hey, Will’s here!” Hunk cries, waving a hand at me from the pool. Pidge and Allura both tag team a dual attack against him with his back turned and completely douse him in a large wave, escalating their battle. 

Keith glances back at me and the minimal courage I’d built up gets utterly massacred, thrown out a window and untraceable.  _ Oh no he’s hot. Hn.  _ He gives me a brief once over as I walk over to them, my stomach feels like it’s made of jelly but it gets even worse when I see the tips of his ears turning red.  _ Oh no, I really  _ **_am_ ** _ gay.  _ “... Your trunks are white.” Keith says, glancing down at my legs before he abruptly looks back up, clearing his throat before he states, “Er- Hi.”

I blink stupidly for a solid two seconds before I reply, “... Hi. Yes they are white. You’re observant.”  _ Is he as flustered as I am?  _

Shiro coughs on the other side of Keith, drawing my attention. He’s trying to hide a smile behind his prosthetic hand, clearing his throat after a moment before he faces me fully, “Where’s Lance?” 

As if on queue, the door opens and Lance walks in, wearing nothing but trunks. As we turn to face him I see his baby blue eyes scanning the room before they lock on Keith, a devilish smirk coming across his face as he approaches with his hands slightly outstretched. That’s when I realize Keith’s position at the edge of the pool is no longer safe. 

Keith, upon turning in his direction, realizes this as well as he holds a hand up towards Lance, “Lance-!”

_ “Happy Birthday, Keith!” _ Lance cries like he’s charging to battle, racing forward with nefarious purpose. Keith tries to sidestep it but with a devilish smirk I block his escape, pushing on his shoulder to keep him in place. He gives me a look of betrayal right as Lance tackles him, sending the both of them flying into the pool with a massive splash. 

The room erupts in laughter as Lance surfaces, laughing loudly as he swims out of Keith’s range. Keith erupts from the waters like a shark with an enraged cry,  _ “Lance!” _ The man in question merely cackles as he swims away with the agility of a seal as he evades Keith’s wrath, just watching them chasing each other I’m doubled over from laughing so hard. 

“Shiro! Get in here!” Pidge cries from the waters, she’s bobbing in the waters and is smiling  _ way  _ too large to be anything other impish. 

“I’m alright, thanks, though.” Shiro says with a charismatic grin, holding up a hand with a shake of his head. 

An evil idea forms. I move and stand next to Shiro, crossing my arms as I regard the others swimming around in the pool. Shiro doesn’t even look in my direction, causing a devilish grin to form across my face. I take a step back and then with a swift shove on Shiro’s back I send him tumbling into the waters. 

When Shiro surfaces I can’t help but smile with self satisfaction at him, Pidge is cackling with utmost delight. When he gives me a narrow eyed look I clear all emotion from my expression save for faux innocence, “Gotta keep your eyes on your opponent, Shiro.” I smirk cloyingly with a tilt of my head. Shiro’s expression is hard like a rock’s and challenging, and I know immediately that I’ve begun something, that retribution is coming.  _ Bring it on.  _

“Shiro, get over here! I need a partner for an Arusian showdown!” Pidge cries, waving him to her. Behind Pidge I see Allura is sitting on Hunk’s shoulders, over the splashing cries of Lance still trying to evade Keith I hear him speaking to her, “- just gotta knock them over! Just like the Arusians did at their show, you remember?”

“Right!” Allura cries with a serious nod. Shiro makes what sounds like a disapproving sigh as he makes his way over, Pidge scales up to his shoulders like a spidermonkey once he’s close. He doesn’t seem at all deterred by this in the slightest, continuing to make his way towards Hunk and Allura. 

Hunk glances up at Allura and cries, “Prepare for trouble!”  

Allura blinks down at him for a moment, to which Hunk gives her a look as if to say  _ that’s your queue _ , it prompts her to gasp, “Oh! And make it double!”

I laugh and sit on my heels on the poolside, eager to watch this go down. Shiro now looks entirely focused, grasping Pidge’s knees to keep her steady as the battle commences. As soon as Allura and Hunk get close Allura reaches out and grapples Pidge’s arms, twisting her to the side and easily knocks her off of Shiro’s shoulders, she falls with a shriek and a  _ sploosh. _ Shiro blinks before he raises his hands up with a sheepish look.  _ Damn, okay. That was short.  _

I start all of a sudden when a wave of water splashes me, sitting me down fully rather than just on my heels. I blink and zone in on the perpetrator, who crosses his arms on the metal poolside and cocks an eyebrow at me in a playful manner that makes my pulse stutter violently out of time. 

“Hey!” I huff at Keith, giving him a dirty look. 

“Consider us even.” Keith rumbles. His black bangs are pushed out of his face as his soaked hair clings to his neck, it’s such a strange sight to see Keith’s entire face but it’s certainly welcome, as he looks like a  _ damn snack _ , his eyes are a dark lilac in the overhead lights and lit with grey lanterns that send my heart racing just  _ looking  _ at them _.  _ He holds out a hand towards me with a tilt of his head, “We good?” 

I cock an eyebrow at him and snort, “Please, I am  _ not  _ falling for thAT-!” The hand Keith had offered to shake suddenly latches onto my ankle and pulls, yanking me off the poolside and into the water. I sputter and flounder, kicking to resurface until I’m back on my feet, fixing Keith with a glare as he laughs in an  _ annoyingly cute  _ manner. 

I push my hair out of my face with a huff, narrowing my eyes at Keith as he recovers, “You better start running!” 

“Oh yeah, running, in the pool, brilliant.” Lance’s voice from behind me causes me to start, I turn towards him right as he plants his hands on my shoulders and steers me towards where Allura and Hunk are still circling the pool with victorious arms raised in the air. “Come on, we’re taking them on. Get down.” 

I complain loudly but it’s garbled when Lance forces me underwater to sit on my shoulders, it takes some serious upper body strength to stand back upright again. “Christ!” I sputter, coughing as I look up at Lance accusingly, “Warn a hoe, huh?” 

“Silence, steed, onward!” Lance proclaims, pointing towards Hunk and Allura. I huff and shrug my shoulders, wrapping my arms around Lance’s legs as we approach the pair. 

“Oh?” Hunk cries with a challenging eyebrow raised when he spots us coming, “Are you approaching us?”

“Well, we can’t knock you over from over here!” Lance counters as I slosh through the waves. I narrow my eyes at Hunk who narrows his eyes at me, and with a wolfish grin I wink and mouth  _ bring it on _ . 

Lance and Allura immediately lock arms and start tugging, both Hunk and I are stumbling just trying to stay upright, I can barely account for what’s happening above me until suddenly Allura kicks out, pushing my shoulder and catching me off balance. I topple with Lance going down with me, I cough when I surface and wipe my eyes, listening to Allura and Hunk crying out in glee and high fiving each other. 

“Dangit,  _ Will _ , I almost had it!” Lance complains, splashing me. I shoot him a glare and splash him right back. 

“Make way, champions coming through.” Hunk proclaims, walking between us with Allura resting her elbows on top of his head with an all together smug look. 

“Not for long, you’re not!” We turn to see Keith, now perched on Shiro’s shoulders, making their way towards the pair. Immediately Lance, Pidge, and I flock together and out of the way in preparation for the coming battle. 

“Money’s on Shiro and Keith.” Pidge says to us in a hushed tone. 

“Pfft, no way, Allura and Hunk have totally got this.” Lance proclaims as the two teams square off. 

“Loser has to clean the winner’s lion.” Pidge states, her eyes never leaving the impending fight. 

“Done.” Lance states, cupping his hands around his mouth as he shouts, “Go get ‘em, Allura! Mess ‘em up, Hunk!”

Keith grins wickedly once Shiro brings him close enough and immediately he and Allura go head to head, grabbing at each others arms in an attempt to knock the other off. Allura goes for another push of her foot below but it’s against Shiro’s prosthetic shoulder, it does nothing but make her balance teeter. Hunk starts making startled noises as he veers to the side, with a yank Keith delivers the final blow to take the undefeated pair down to the waters. Pidge cries out in victory as Keith hops off of Shiro’s shoulders, giving him a crisp high five and a champion smile.  _ Fuck. I would lament that I haven’t seen Keith’s smile often, but it may be a blessing in disguise that he doesn’t because I am literally too fucking gay to function right now when he does. But… it’s also a look that suits him. _

“Oh come on!” Lance pouts with his arms thrown in the air. Pidge twists towards him with a waggle of her eyebrows and a shit eating grin, one that makes Lance frown and splash her in retaliation. 

After a while’s splashing tournament Hunk calls our attention to the front, where he’s gotten out of the water and is towel drying his hair. “I’m hungry! Is it cake time?” 

Shiro raises an eyebrow over at Keith, who upon seeing his expression crosses his arms with a narrow eyed look. Shiro smirks slightly before he returns his gaze to Hunk, “I think it’s cake time.”

“ _ Heck yeah _ , I’m so ready for this!” Lance cries enthusiastically, planting his hands on the edge of the pool to pull himself out. We make our way to the exits of the pool and when I get near the edge I look up to see a hand hovering in the air in front of me. I raise an eyebrow at Keith where he holds his hand out to help me up, and with a grateful grin I take it. However, as he starts to tug me out of the water I plant my feet on the pool wall and pull with all of my might, sending him instead tumbling on top of me and into the water. I fall back into the water but then swim back to surface, wiping the water from my eyes while practically doubled over in laughter. 

Keith surfaces with a deadpan, completely done expression that nearly makes it impossible for me to recover from laughing. I manage to wheeze out with a hand pointed at him, “ _ Hahahah!  _ And  _ now  _ we’re even.” His cheeks bloom red beneath his eyes as he looks at me with a look I can’t discern as I move past him to get out of the pool, I have to keep my gaze averted before I start blushing, too.  _ He’s been acting weird. Or am I just being sensitive? Maybe he’s just all embarrassed and flustered because of birthday stuff, the guy’s socially awkward as hell, it’s not unheard of. Yeah, that’s what it is. Nothing else. _

Lance wraps an arm around Keith’s wet shoulder and tugs him forward to lead us to the dining room, towel drying his hair vigorously enough to nearly send the pair crashing into the wall. The rest of us follow with varying levels of amusement, spirits are so high that it’s practically tangible. Looking at the others jovial expressions, Pidge cleaning her glasses with tears of laughter welled in her eyes, Hunk’s beaming like the actual ray of sunshine he is, Shiro has been smiling so much today that it makes my chest fill with warmth like hot cider, Allura is like a fresh cut diamond, her dark brown skin glows like bronze and her hair looks like rivers of starlight as she wrings it dry while we walk, her smile is brilliant and wide, it’s like every facet of her being is shining with joy.  _ After the weeks we’ve been having… This is exactly what we needed. No impending threat of death and doom to rain down upon us has done wonders. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at everyone’s smiles.  _

When we get to the dining room there’s a stack of plates and a small cake sitting in the middle of the table, about the size of my head, with Coran standing at the head of the table. It’s covered in bright red frosting with little licks of flame around the edges and on top is what looks like a little figurine of the Red Lion, perched on its feet with its ears pointed forward and its tail lowered in a hunter’s stance. On top of its head I see the bit of white wick sticking out, burning a low flame. 

“That’s so cute!” I say with a gasp, “How the hell did you manage that?” I point to the Red Lion candle on top of the cake as we all gather around the table. 

Coran twists his mustache between his white gloved fingertips with a winning smile, “My grandfather taught me many things; first to stay away from a Weblum’s face, second to always rinse your uniform after cycling the gacluse, and third: how to create charming little figurines!” He gestures to the candle with a flourish, leaving me with more questions than answers. 

“Alright, on my cue everyone,” Lance raises his hands as if he’s about to count us in, after a wave of his hands he starts to yell,  _ “Happy Birthday to you-!” _

“Do we  _ really  _ have to-” Keith complains but he’s completely overpowered as the rest of us come in with the rest of the song, both Allura and Coran look utterly clueless in such an endearing manner that we’re laughing in between the words, getting us all out of time.  _ “Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday dear-”  _ **_“Mullet!”_ ** I punch Lance in the arm as he snickers, with a loud cacophony we conclude _ “Happy birthday to you!”  _

Keith looks very much like he wants to crawl into a hole and die, and it takes everything in me not to laugh out loud at his expression. He glances at the rest of us with a sheepish expression and red tipped ears once we’re all done, prompting Shiro to gesture to the cake, “Make a wish!” 

Keith huffs, his whole face turning a slow pink before he faces the cake like it’s the Gladiator. He purses his lips briefly in thought before he blows out the flame, a small trail of smoke rising from the wick. We all cheer with various excitement as Hunk produces a knife from beneath the cake, “Alright, back up now, let the master do his work!” 

“Look out!” Lance cries in terror, grabbing Pidge’s shoulders as he jokingly cowers behind her,  _ “He’s got a knife!” _

“Don’t make him use it.” Pidge grumbles with zero amusement, sitting on her heels in her chair as Hunk starts dolling out cake slices. 

The inside of the cake is dark crimson like red velvet, causing me to raise my eyebrow at Hunk when I get my slice, “Hey, Hunk?” I ask while investigating my cake, “What’s in this?” 

“Good question.” Hunk answers, smiling a little sheepishly as he slumps down in a seat with a cake slice, “But I promise, it’s edible, and it tastes great.”

“Wonderful.” I joke with a smirk, sitting and giving it an experimental taste. I was expecting the cake to be spongy like, you know, cake, but instead it has the texture of a brownie, dense and thick with a sweet taste that I have no idea how to describe, it’s not chocolate but it’s not straight sugar or fondant; it tastes like how your tongue feels after you eat a really good cookie. 

“This is so good!” Lance proclaims, his mouth half full of cake as he whirls towards Hunk, “Way to go, Hunk!”

Hunk smiles shyly and shrugs, “Hey, you know, Coran helped out a lot with the ingredients and stuff.”

“This was all a great team effort.” Shiro states after a moment, his fork resting in his prosthetic hand as he turns and regards each of us with a gentle gaze, “You guys did great.” 

I gasp suddenly, sitting upright, “Oh my gosh, guys, do you feel that?” I hold my hands flat as the others all look at me with wide, startled eyes, after a moment I relax and cross my arms with a smirk, “Feels like  _ teamwork  _ and  _ unity _ .” 

Pidge snorts over her cake as I’m met with generalistic eye rolls and scoffs, filling me with marginal pleasure. I rest my chin in my hand and eat the rest of my cake happily. 

“Alright, well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m  _ so  _ ready to hit the hay.” Lance says with a loud exhale, standing with his arms in the air. 

I raise an eyebrow at him and reply, “And you should, speaking of hay; tomorrow I’m gonna show you how to milk Kaltenecker so you can do it yourself.” 

Lance gives me a look of absolute disgust,  _ “Yeuck! Why?!”  _

“Well, it is  _ your  _ cow.” Pidge counters, licking her fork as she crosses her legs under her where she sits in her chair.

Lance purses his lips at Pidge and then at me before he lets out a sigh,  _ “Fine, alright.” _

“We should all get some rest.” Shiro says with a brisk nod, rising from the table as well, “We have a long day of training tomorrow.” 

“Aww,  _ come on,  _ Shiro!” Hunk complains, pouting with his head in his hands as he flashes Shiro full blown, pleading puppy eyes, “Just one more day?”

Shiro shakes his head, to which Hunk lets out a saddened groan and rests his head on the table. We stack our plates up together on the table top, I pick up the stack as Hunk grabs the leftover cake to take back to the kitchen. As we start to go our separate ways I hear Shiro speaking in an undertone, “Did you have a good day?”

I pause in the doorway to see Shiro standing with Keith, looking at him seriously. Keith stands slowly, glancing down at the table before he looks back at Shiro, the smile that makes my heart explode appearing on his face, “Yeah. Yeah, it was great.”

Shiro clasps his hand on Keith’s shoulder with a familial smile, patting him gently before they move together towards the opposite doorway, where Pidge, Allura, Coran, and Lance had already left. Smiling brightly to myself, filled with warmth and joy, I turn and quickly follow after Hunk to put the dishes away. 

“Hey dude, I didn’t get a chance to say it earlier,” Hunk says once I caught up to him in the kitchen, turning to face me as I’m bent over putting dishes in the washer, “Your tattoos are really cool. I like the dragon on your back.” 

I smirk a bit, dusting my hands off as I straighten, “Thanks. I got the two as birthday presents.” 

“Huh. That’s new. I got a bunch of tools and stuff for mine last year.” Hunk replies thoughtfully with a finger tapping his chin as we walk out of the kitchen, “I don’t think I’d ever wanna get a tattoo. They just seem like they’d hurt, you know?” He glances over at me before he smiles sheepishly, “Well, you actually do know, don’t you? Hah.” 

I snort and shake my head with a grin. The halls of the Castle have dimmed with the fall of night, leaving us walking in the relative darkness back to our rooms. I call goodnight to Hunk as I duck back into my room, and once I’m changed out of my swimsuit and back into clothes, I duck under the covers and close my eyes within seconds.

_ Wow. What a day.  _

_ Keith’s birthday is October 23rd, that was six days ago. What the fuck were we doing six days ago? A whole fuck ton has happened since we’ve left Earth, I can’t even begin to think back like that, it’s such a soup in my head. He seemed to have a good time, at least at the pool, I didn’t see a moment he wasn’t downright unhappy, at least.  _ Warm, fuzziness spreads through my limbs pleasantly, thinking back as I count the amount of smiles I saw.  _ I’m so, so happy that we’ve had these few days to have times like this before we get to the Blade of Marmora’s base. Something’s telling me that once we get there we’ll be taking off running to stop Zarkon, who knows when the next time we’ll be able to just quit the day to throw an impromptu party? That’s a depressing thought, but am I wrong? I guess we should appreciate these days while we have them.  _ This saps the warmth straight from my limbs, leaving me chilled beneath the sheets.  _ Let’s not think about that. Let’s think about today. Today made me really, really happy. _

_ Shiro seemed so relaxed today, smiling and being so generally carefree that it was weird to see. Maybe he’s been feeling a little bit better, maybe what he needed was the day to relax. Same with Allura, my God, she was so… childlike. It was so cute to see, her on Hunk’s shoulders as the unstoppable tag team in Arusian battle, and even before that, helping us with the decorations. The whole day was just… wonderful. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Keith seemed to enjoy it but it’s hard to say, since he’s been acting kind of weird today. I’m sure it’s just awkwardness, he said it himself that he isn’t used to people celebrating his birthday. I hope we changed that. Or, at least, I hope we set a new bar for him on how to be appreciated, or something like that. I mean, he deserves that, everyone does. Especially him though.  _

A small part of me begins to twist, pulling me towards the doorway.  _ I kind of want to go see him. I have no clue why, or what I would even say but I just wanna… see him. Like, just roll up to his room and see his face, maybe ask him if he enjoyed the party, if he liked Hunk’s cake. I wonder what his favorite flavor of cake is, I wonder if he likes ice cream with his cake or not. I wonder how he’s celebrated his birthdays in the past.  _

_ I want to know more about him, I feel like I don’t know much about his past. Well, except he was thrown out of the Garrison at some point, but I never found out why, and what he was did afterwards. I wanna know why he lived on a farm for two years, where this farm was and who he lived with, and why he left. I wonder how cadets celebrate birthdays at the Garrison, maybe they have cake at dinner or something?  _

_ I wonder if Keith likes hugs. He doesn’t seem to like it much when people touch him casually, but I wonder if there’s a situation he would want a hug, or to hug someone else.  _

_ I wonder if he’s okay with people touching his hair. I looks soft and fun to play with, I know of no one who keeps their hair longer who doesn’t like to have it played with, but he’s also not a touchy feely person, so maybe not.  _

_ I’d love to just… lay with him. Play with his hair. I wonder if he’s a little or a big spoon. Knowing him, he’d probably say he’s a knife. Oh, that would be hilarious. I never thought he’d be the kind of person to joke like that but he’s proven me wrong like that a few times, he’s playful. Maybe he’s just showing it a little more now that he’s trusting us a little.  _

_ Huh. I don’t think these are thoughts a straight person would have.  _

_ Lucky for me I’m not straight.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a TOTAL callout post @ myself for 1. not checking Paladin birthdays until recently and realizing the squad fucking forgot Keith's (but in my calendar the 23rd was the day that Zarkon was chasing them across the star system so tbh it worked out), and I also fuckin forgot about Kaltenecker (as did Dreamworks until later it's fine)  
> Alright so I finally have an ultimate guideline decision that Chapter 9 is when these fuckers get to the BOM base, I know, I'm so sorry, but don't tell me you didn't this shit wasn't cute as fuck. I felt like I had to brush my teeth after I wrote this it was so damn sweet.  
> Don't get used to it :0)


	8. The Secrets of Quintessence Transmutation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since Allura implied that the White Lion's stone could be some way to transmute quintessence, in what she calls Altean alchemy, Will's been tumbling with the implications of what that could hold, not just for him as the White Paladin but also for the strange ritual he and the rest of the Castle witnessed at the space base. When Coran encounters a problem with the teludav, perhaps some of these questions may find some semblance of an answer.  
> \---  
> **Warning: I have a friend who's really icked out by veins and mentions of them, so warning that about midway through there's a moment where my descriptions use a lot of similes in relation to veins and stuff like that, so call this a body horror warning. There is no actual body horror, but... ya know. metaphors.**

I wake up to the muffled sound of voices out in the hallway. I roll over and rub my eyes, sitting up with a yawn as I shuffle to the doorway and look outside for the source. 

Pidge, Lance, and Keith are walking down the hallway together, Lance is yammering about something I can’t quite distinguish as they take a turn towards the dining room. I rub my eyes again with a yawn as I head back into my room, tapping the holographic panel by my bed. 8am.  _ Good a time as any to get up, I guess.  _

I get ready for the day and head to breakfast. 

Talk at the table is jovial and bright but minimal, we’re still in high spirits from yesterday’s festivities, but it is also 8am. 

“I had the craziest dream last night,” Hunk declares, raising a spoon in his fist in the air, “We were in Voltron, right, and we were fighting a  _ huge  _ sushi monster, but it was also kind of like Voltron too because different types of sushi’s came together to form a megasushi, and it was kicking our butts so badly until suddenly we were all washed away by this huge wave of soy sauce!” He lets out a low whistle, spooning some goo into his mouth once he’s finished, “Eh wash sho weow!”

“How could a bunch of sushi form a  _ megasushi _ ?” Lance questions, narrowing his eyes at Hunk suspiciously. 

Hunk purses his lips as he swallows before he answers, “I don’t know, how do six, sentient, mechanical lions form a big super bot?”

“The power of friendship.” I reply in a faux dreamy tone, flashing a toothy grin over at Shiro, “And  _ teamwork _ .” 

The others snort appreciatively at my joke. Shiro shakes his head at me but with an amicable light in his eyes, “You laugh, but as our coordination as a team improves, so does our performance in Voltron.” He stands upright after a moment, resting his fingertips on the table, “When everyone’s ready, let’s get started with some Voltron formation.”

I hold up my hand, peering up at Shiro as I rise, “Uh, Shiro? You mind if I steal Lance so we can go check on Kaltenecker?”

“Of course. Meet up with us outside in your lions when you’re done.” Shiro says with a brisk nod, jutting his chin towards the doorway, “In the mean time, the rest of us will work in our lions.” 

“Ugh, are we gonna need a bucket?” Lance asks with a curled lip as we make our way to the doorway. He groans loudly when I nod, hanging his head dejectedly, “Aww,  _ man. _ ” 

We make a stop at the kitchen for a bucket, kept in a cupboard by the goo station, before we head to Kaltenecker’s room. 

“Sleep well?” Lance asks me after a moment as we head in that direction, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets loosely. 

I nod with a bright grin, “Yeah man! I didn’t have  _ any  _ dreams last night. How awesome is that? You sleep good, too?”

Lance smirks, making a smoothing gesture with a hand, “Like a ghaltoff.” 

I raise an eyebrow and scoff, “And the fuck is that?”

Lance taps his lips for a moment, tilting his head to the side before he shrugs, “I think it’s like an Altean ox or something. That’s what Allura told me, anyway.”

“Right. Now how exactly did you sleep like one?” I chuckle. Lance makes an  _ I dunno _ noise as we walk into Kaltenecker’s pasture. She’s standing by the hay bale in the run-in, eating it happily with slow munches. She looks up when we walk in, her ears flickering to the sides but she doesn’t move, she turns away again to continue eating the hay after only a moment. 

“She must be feeling better.” I murmur, approaching and laying a hand on her flank. She doesn’t react save to rip out some more hay from the bale. It looks fuller than yesterday. “Did you bring her more hay?” I ask, glancing over at Lance with a raised eyebrow. 

“Yeah, course I did! I’ve been coming to bring her more food and water every day when I wake up and I check on her and pet her some before I go to bed.” Lance scratches her head affectionately, smoothing his long fingers over the fur on the top of her head,  _ “Who’s a good Kaltenecker? Yes, you are, yes, you!” _

I can’t help but smile, partially in joy but mostly respect. “Wow, you’re a lot more responsible than I give you credit for.” I jest with a grin, setting the bucket down before I kneel beside her to check her out. 

“Hey, I  _ am  _ responsible! I babysit my siblings and my cousins all the time!” Lance proclaims with a peeved look thrown at me where he stands petting Kaltenecker. 

I roll my eyes and touch her stomach, and I’m shocked to see that her utters appear completely healthy, not a trace of angry redness or swelling like yesterday. “Damn,” I mutter, “Those Altean antibiotics really did a number. She looks great.” I glance up at Lance, cocking an eyebrow at him with a smirk, “You ready to do this?”

Lance huffs, moving to kneel down next to me beside Kaltenecker, “Not really, but if it’s what Kaltenecker needs…” He rests a hand on her side, looking at her with a dewey gaze,  _ “I’ll be a good dad for you, Kaltenecker! I promise!”  _

I smack his arm to pull his attention back to me, rubbing my hands together as I speak, “Alright Lance, so, Milking a Cow 101, first you gotta strip her; basically it’s clearing out any bacteria and stuff from the teats.” I reach under her right as Lance snickers behind me, mumbling under his breath,  _ “Teats.”  _

“I’m gonna beat the shit out of you in training today if you don’t focus.” I threaten with a jesting tone thrown over my shoulder. “You just gotta squeeze it with little tugs, not too hard, but you gotta be firm. You’ll wanna do that to each one three or four times on each one before you get to the milking part.” I shift to the side, holding out a hand towards Kaltenecker’s utter with a raised eyebrow at Lance, “Get in there, sharpshooter.” 

Lance gives me a look but does as I ask, shifting forward cautiously. I pet Kaltenecker’s flank as Lance grabs a teat and pulls, looking frantically up at Kaltenecker like she’s about to reach back and bite him. “Don’t worry, you’re doing great.” I encourage. Lance furrows his eyebrows and huffs before he gets to work.

He sits back on his heels once he’s finished, dusting his hands off, “... Okay. Okay! Now what?” 

I slide the bucket from beside me under Kaltenecker, turning to Lance, “Now, same thing, but you twist your wrist a bit to the side while grabbing two a time, like how a calf would.” He gives me a look of uncomprehension so I take his hand for him, leaning under and physically putting his hand in the proper position under the bucket. “Give it a tug, just like before.” I murmur encouragingly once he’s in a position I find satisfactory. Lance’s eyebrows scrunch together in concentration and when the milk starts to come out Lance lets out a startled yelp. Fortunately Kaltenecker could not give less of a fuck, her tail doesn’t even flick. “Keep going, keep going.” I mutter supportively, keeping a hand resting on the lip of the bucket to keep it in place as Lance milks her. 

“Alright, you see this?” I rest a hand on Lance’s to stop him once the milk is at a trickle, gesturing to the teats he had at hand, “When they look like that that means they’re empty. Now we can move on and do the same to these two.” 

Lance sticks out his tongue in concentration as he completes the task, his eyebrows furrowed and his expression raptly focused. Once he’s done he sits back on his heels, letting out a sudden burst of air before he looks over at me with a breathless grin, “Is that it? Did I do it?” 

“Fuck yeah you did.” I say with a matching, winning smile, slowly pulling the bucket out from beneath Kaltenecker and setting it aside. It’s less than half what it was yesterday and it looks crisp and white, just like milk is supposed to. “I wouldn’t drink this today because of the infection clearing out only yesterday, but if she seems to be doing fine when you milk her later on I’d say it’ll be drinkable. Sure Hunk will love that.” I rest my hands on my waist, giving Lance a high five with a lazy smile, “That was awesome, you did great.” 

“Whoa man. That was crazy.” Lance lets out another breath, looking down at the bucket with a triumphant grin before he rounds to Kaltenecker’s face, scratching in between her horns with a coo,  _ “Who’s a good Kaltenecker?”  _

“Alright, come on, cow-dad,” I joke, elbowing him as I lift up the bucket to take out, “Let’s meet up with the others in the hangers.” 

“Not before I wash my hands!” Lance huffs with a curled nose, moving to walk after me. I snort while shaking my head, and together we head to the bathroom. I dump out the milk in the drain of one of the showers before washing my hands as well, heading down to the hanger bay to get in our suits after dropping the bucket off back in Kaltenecker’s makeshift pasture.

Shiro keeps us busy for the day once we rejoin the others, practicing with Voltron formation before using some Castle defenses to keep our mobility skills. Hunk, Pidge, and I are able to practice non-verbally communicating with one another, making our coordinated movements so flawless and quick to the point that I notice a difference in how we move in junction with the others; it’s just a little jilted and off time, nothing I noticed before but now that I have this to compare it to, it’s apparent.  _ This just goes to show that there is something about getting our stones that helps us grow closer as a team while in Voltron, I’m not quite sure how it works, but the others have got to notice this too, right? _

_ ‘I don’t know, it’s easy for us to see ‘cause we have that point of comparison- Oh right, laser engaged!’  _

_ ‘I wonder what’s for lunch. Probably goo. I have got to see if I can find some more ingredients that are easy to grab-’ _

I furrow my eyebrows and let out a huff,  _ Hunk, think about food in your own head! _

_ ‘Well, if I’m only allowed to think about food in my head, you’re only allowed to think about Keith in YOUR own head!’  _

I flush violently, jerking on my controls a little harder than I mean to.  _ When we get out of our lions, I’m gonna supplex you.  _

_ ‘He’s twice your size.’  _

I curl my nose.  _ You think that’ll stop me?  _

_ ‘Uh, no supplexing please, these lasers are enough of a beating!’ _

I pause and raise an eyebrow right as Shiro barks, “Look out, dive down!” I engage the thrusters on queue, furrowing my eyebrows suddenly as we corkscrew downward in a dizzying manner.  _ Wait a minute… oh, oh geez, corkscrew… have you been getting the hits from blasts, too? I’ve been feeling them like I’m getting hit with a rock but it’s nothing like it was before.  _

_ ‘I mean, kind of, it’s not bad, it’s like pinpricks-’  _

_ ‘I think we’re getting them at the same time. I kind of feel it, but I also feel you guys feeling it too. It’s weird.’ _

_ ‘Are you feeling it now, Mister-?’ ‘HUNK, you gotta go faster or we’re gonna CAPSIZE!’  _

“Hunk, push harder dude!” Lance cries almost in junction with Pidge’s thoughts, “We’re about to tumble!” 

“AH! Sorry!” Hunk cries with an edge of fear in his voice. I regulate the controls once the blasts are steadier from below, righting us properly downward through space as we evade the Castle defense systems. 

_ Before, when it was just me, I felt each hit like I would when I was in my lion, but now it hasn’t felt as much like that when we get hit by a blast, like… toned down. I get what Pidge was saying, I didn’t really have the words for it, but it definitely was like I was feeling it through you guys as well.  _

_ ‘Maybe we kind of… divvy it up, instead of just one of us getting the hit, it’s divided among each of us.’ _

_ ‘That would make sense, since we’re all in Voltron, we’re like, all a part of one thing.’  _

I nod a little to myself as I ease on the thrusters under my fingers.  _ That’s fucking fine by me. Won’t catch me complaining. Maybe we won’t have another situation like back on Arus when that robot suckerpunched the fuck out of me.  _ I remember looking at the ugly bruise in my room, the angry red spiking out around it, and  _ oh man that’s right that’s when Keith came to check on me and I had a gay panic, he kept asking me those questions, touching my chest- _

_ ‘Yuck, this is the downside of being inside each other’s heads. I really didn’t wanna see that.’  _

_ ‘The bruise or the Keith?’ _

_ ‘The Keith.’  _

I frown and groan out loud.  _ Fuck you guys. I can’t control it! _

_ ‘Er- sorry, Will.’ ‘I’m not.’ _

We pause for lunch, much to Hunk’s delight, before we head back out for maneuvering work in our lions. Once we come back in for dinner, Shiro dismisses us for the night. 

“Good work team.” He says as he stands from the dinner table, collecting the bowls together, “We’re really coming along with our training in Voltron.” 

“Thanks, Shiro.” I say with a wave of my hand, kicking up my feet up on the table as I lean back in my chair, closing my eyes, “Now I’m gonna go to sleep. Goodnight.” 

_ “Sleep well.”  _ Pidge croons in a comically deep voice, brushing her fingertips over my temple as she walks past when the others rise from the table.

I open an eye to look at her incredulously before snickering with a grin, “The fuck was that?” She glances back at me and only waggles her eyebrows with a knowing look before she continues on her way out of the dining room. 

I narrow my eyes and stand up when it dawns on me, I can feel my face is blossoming a dark red as I bark, “Hey!” I head for the door after her, upon hearing my outburst she cackles and takes off down the hallway. “Hey, get back here you gremlin!” I cry, moving to take off after her but instead colliding straight into Hunk as he steps in the doorway in front of me, sending me flat on my ass. I look up at him with an incredulous look as he looks down at me in surprise, tapping his fingertips together sheepishly, “Ah, sorry! Didn’t see you there.”

I pout and pull myself upright, patting him on the shoulder as I let out a slow sigh, “‘Is fine, big guy.” 

Together we head back to our rooms, the halls are already dark in Castle conforming night. When I get back to my room the work of the day catches up to me relatively quickly. I write down the day’s events in my notebook, bare sentences of  _ ‘we formed Voltron a bunch, Pidge and Hunk keep making fun of me because of my gay panics around Keith, we’re getting close to the Blade of Marmora’s base’ _ before I collapse on my bed and pass out.  _ Long day. _

… 

_ “‘How do I get to heaven?’ you cry,  _ _   
_ _ Deep into the night sky, _ _   
_ _ A thundering roar that shakes me to my bones _ _   
_ __ And bruises my thighs,” 

_ I turn in circles where I stand in the middle of a large field, a field I recognize. The sky is stormy and gray, thunder clouds roll over the flat grasslands that grow as tall as my waist, the color of a dark mustard. The wind is powerful and nearly sends me tumbling backwards from the force of it.  _

_ “With the chorus of the flight, _ _   
_ _ I hear your wolf howl in the night _ _   
_ _ I stumble and fall to your side, _ _   
_ __ ‘Oh, how do I get to heaven?’” 

_ I turn in circles as the song choruses through my head, a song I recognize and know well; it doesn’t seem to come from within me or from a source around me, it’s like the very air hums the song, it’s everywhere and expansive in every facet. I feel a dull ache in my hip that grows stronger and more powerful as I fight to stay standing against the buffeting winds, when I look down I see a deep hole in my side, sparking with purple lightning like the bleeding crevice is a live wire. _

_ “Baby did it hurt, you ask,  _ _   
_ _ When you bared your teeth, _ _   
_ _ And ripped apart my mask, _ _   
_ _ A mask you told me never to sheath, _ _   
_ __ ‘Oh, how do I get to heaven?’” 

_ I feel a tug on my shirt and when I turn around I see a small shadow made of black smoke. The song abruptly ends and the shadow suddenly lets out a loud cry with the voice of a small child, echoing across the plain, “Closer! You’re getting closer!”  _

I blink awake with a soft groan, rolling onto my side and bunching the blankets around me closer to my form as a sudden shiver rocks my being. I try to slip back into slumber, the remnants of a song in the edge of my consciousness but the more I focus on it the more sleep eludes me, until I’m on my back and staring at the ceiling with my eyes on the holographic pictures of Lance tied to a tree on the wall. 

_ Oh, how do I get to heaven?  _

_ That’s the first song I fully produced on my keyboard. I wonder why that’s the song that my mind thought to bring up. What was that? I feel like I was dreaming… but I can’t remember what about. Man. Well, whatever it was, at least it wasn’t scary.  _

I sit up with rub my eyes, going about getting ready for the day. I’m fully awake by the time I roll up for breakfast in the dining room. 

Keith, Shiro, and Hunk are already sitting with bowls of goo but it looks like they mostly just got here, their bowls are still relatively full. I yawn and wave a hand as I walk in, grabbing a bowl of goo to eat as I settle next to Shiro, “Morning.” 

“Hey man.” Hunk says, and something about his tone immediately snaps my attention to him. When I hone in on his expression I can see that his eyes are a bit glazed over and distant, and the sag in his shoulders indicates a level of exhaustion. Immediately my mind flocks to the worst.

“You had a dream, didn’t you?” I ask rhetorically, setting my spoon down and giving Hunk my undivided attention. 

Hunk hangs his head a little and sighs, scratching the back of his head as he grumbles, “What, so I don’t sound super chipper in the morning and that automatically means my lion’s sending me super freaky, crazy scary dreams? Can’t a guy just eat his goo in peace?”

“Hunk,” Shiro chides gently, his eyebrows knit together in worry, “We’re just trying to look out for you.”  _ So he noticed it too. They may have been talking about that before I came in.  _

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” I state quickly, looking back down at my food goo, “We’re here for you if you do.”

The door opens and in strolls Lance and Pidge, surprisingly jovial considering the current climate of the table. However as soon as they sit down and start talking it seems to lift everyone’s spirits, and once Hunk is able to smile again the heaviness of the atmosphere is practically lifted. Internally, I scream into the void.  _ So it isn’t just one. He had another, but now he doesn’t want to share it. Is he okay? Why didn’t he buzz us last night? What did he dream about? God, this is even worse than that night we were all there for him, ready with a group hug. Hunk…  _

Suddenly the com that sounds throughout the Castle sounds, followed by Allura’s commanding voice, “Paladins, meet us down in the engine room at once.” 

We look at each other with wide, worried eyes and immediately rise, abandoning our food and moving with purpose and without hesitation to the engine room. 

“Do you think that there’s something wrong?” Pidge asks with a worried dip in her expression, pushing her glasses up her nose. 

“I doubt that something’s right.” Hunk replies with a pessimistic drag of his mouth towards the ground. I reach out and rub my hand on his shoulderblade affectionately, which he seems to appreciate as he glances over at me and offers me a small smile.  _ I wonder what he dreamed about that’s troubling him so visibly. If I recall his first dream was… The field of dead, and then us as a team splintering in empty space.  _

_ What the hell are these dreams for? What is the Yellow Lion trying to glean from him? _

When we get to the engine room we head back towards the teludav chamber where Coran has been working, and within we find the two Alteans standing inside the actual cylindrical chamber itself, looking at the central part of the huge, circular tray thing at the back of the teludav.

“What’s going on?” Shiro asks, his eyebrows furrowed in worry as we file in. Allura and Coran both look up at us as we enter and move to step out of the teludav, Allura is holding something cradled in her hand. 

“We’re facing a major problem with the teludav.” Coran says in a dark, dismayed tone, his eyebrows are drawn together and his strange, silvery eyes are on the floor with a dejected air, “I’m afraid that the main carbine disc, the piece that directs the Balmeran crystal’s energy into the teludav power distributors, is broken beyond repair.” 

“So can’t we get a new one?” Keith asks with a raised eyebrow and a tense tone, causing me to look back at him with a raised eyebrow. He looks on edge, like he’s a spring that’s been sitting coiled for a little too long.  _ What’s got him so stressed, suddenly? _

“That’s the  _ major  _ part of the problem.” Allura answers with a deep frown. She uncovers her hands and reveals a small, ovular glass, it looks like a paper weight the shape of a large egg but it’s missing a major piece of it, and the part where it’s missing is flaking what looks like glittery shards like ice shoring off of a smooth surface. “Of all the parts of the teludav, this one is the most irreplaceable. It’s one of the custom, Altean alchemic-made pieces that made the Castle function as both as battle cruiser  _ and  _ a teludav operator.”

“What do you mean?” Pidge asks with a raised eyebrow, stepping forward to look at the broken glass in Allura’s hand more closely. 

Coran holds his hands behind his back, speaking in a matter of fact tone, “The type of power that a teludav needs from a Balmeran crystal and the type that a battle cruiser needs are completely different, this would usually require two crystals of the same size to power them both. However, ships that are powered in this manner face many, many complications, as the types of power cannot intersect with one another without drastic results. What we Alteans have done is to have a separate ring with the teludav on board with its own crystal, and then any ship could use the teludav to jump, but it was always a one way trip; essentially they were split into two separate vessels.” Coran twists his mustache with a sudden proud tone, “But when the Castle of Lions was commissioned by King Alfor, he asked an Altean alchemist to make a device to be used in the Castle that reflects the Balmeran crystal’s energy so that it can be used for both the teludav  _ and  _ the ship itself, without any cross contamination. Thus we have carbine disc.” 

“But that means you’ll need another alchemist to make a new one.” I mutter, staring at the broken glass in Allura’s hand. I can see the piece that had been broken off, the whole creation beyond what I see in my mind’s eye of what it once was. Like a little, clear, diamond stone carved into a flattened egg, refracting light in a thousand directions. A cool paperweight on Earth, an irreplaceable part in space.

“Exactly.” Allura says with a sigh, looking down at the device in her hands as she murmurs, “I’m afraid that means there is no possible way to replace it.” 

“Wait, why do you need an alchemist guy to make another? What makes it special?” Lance asks incredulously, his arms crossed as he looks with wide eyes between Allura and the broken carbine disc. 

“The elemental compounds within this disc are what you’d call hand made,” Coran explains, looking down at Allura’s hand with furrowed eyebrows, “We could try and perform analysis to see exactly what material the disc seems to be composed of, but the likelihood that something like it naturally exists is slim to none.” 

“Well, can’t the Olkari do it?” Pidge asks, tilting her head to the side with a raised eyebrow, “They can manipulate almost anything through their interfacing programs!”

Allura shakes her head, her ears droop slightly in a manner that makes her all together much sadder in appearance than before, “The Olkari are gifted in their ability to manipulate base materials, but they cannot change the quintessence of the matter they are dealing with. We would still need that base material for them to manipulate.” 

“So, for the Olkari it’s like water.” Lance says after a moment. We all look over at him with intrigued expressions as he elaborates, “Yeah, you know, like, when it’s hot it’s steam, right? And when it’s cold it’s ice, but it’s still water at the end of the day even though it doesn’t look like it anymore.”

“Essentially.” Allura says with a slight nod. 

“How is what you’re talking about possible, then?” Keith asks with furrowed eyebrows, his arms crossed as he pins his gaze on Allura and Coran squarely like they’re telling him he just got eliminated from nationals. That’s the face my captain made, anyway, when we did back in my seventh grade year.

Coran turns to Allura immediately, his expression reading  _ it’s up to your discretion _ . Allura sighs, moving to set the broken disc on the nearby surface panel as she speaks, “What we call Altean alchemy is a process called quintessence transmutation. It’s taking the base quintessence of one object, an element, a compound, or even an organism, and changing its base entirely into something else.” Allura pauses, her gaze flickering between each of us momentarily before she continues, “Only a few Alteans were ever permitted to study the art for many reasons, one being that many are genetically unable to attempt it, but also because it’s incredibly dangerous with the potential to be deadly.” 

“So, how’s that different than what the Olkari do?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow, his fingertips are twitching as they loop around one another in his lap. 

Coran answers, twisting his mustache between his thumb and forefinger, “For the Olkari, it’s like handing them clay. They can make a sculpture of any kind, a carved ghaltoff, a tree, a palace, but at the end of the day it is still a sculpture, no matter how realistic it looks.” Coran gestures to the stone resting on the panel to the side of the teludav chamber, “For an alchemist, if you handed them clay, they could make a living tree that doesn’t at all reflect the clay that it came from, a real ghaltoff, a real palace made of real stone.”

“That sounds like what they were doing at the space base.” Keith says after a moment in a smaller voice, his arms crossed with a furrowed expression glued to someplace far away, “That’s what you said before when we were there.” 

Allura glances at me only momentarily before she nods, “Yes. The implications of that ritual you and Will saw are an area of great concern because it is supposed to be impossible for Zarkon to have discovered a way around alchemic procedure to perform quintessence transmutation in a thousand years. It took Altean alchemists  _ millennia _ to even figure out that it is within mortal capability to do, and many millennia more to begin creating methods of performing it.” Allura sets her jaw, her hand resting on the panel clenching into a fist, “However, that transmutation is twisted and singular. It’s only able to create whatever that refined quintessence is as a final result, using what Coran and I believe to be raw quintessence. It does not have the capability to make anything else beyond it.”

“Raw quintessence?” Pidge asks with a raised eyebrow, pushing her glasses up her face by scrunching her nose.

_ Hey I know this one.  _ “It’s basically the result of bonds that pull compounds together utterly smashed to nothing, it’s a shell to be filled with that weird lightning that guy was projecting into it.” I answer, glancing over at Keith with a meaningful look. He meets my gaze resolutely without a change in expression and says nothing. 

“Whatever the lightning is, it’s certainly some manner of quintessence,” Coran follows with a nod in my direction, “A life force forcefully projected into a raw framework to mass produce the same kind of quintessence so it can be used as an energy source without having to draw that quintessence from the same source.”

“It’s implications are something that Coran and I are still trying to figure out.” Allura says after a moment, shaking her head briskly like she’s brushing aside invasive thoughts, “But for the moment that’s all we can deduce until we get more information.” 

“Okay,” Pidge says with her hands raised, “So, back to the wormholer, that same process can’t be replicated? Can’t we find a way to do what the Galra did to make another carbine disc?”

Allura shakes her head, frowning darkly, “It’s a process that we cannot begin to comprehend or guess through. Its secrets were lost with Altean alchemists.”

We all look at one another with more or less confusion. “So… is this it?” Hunk asks with a crestfallen expression, peering with wide eyes at the teludav chamber behind Allura and Coran, “No more wormholing?”

The room is deadly silent, answering the thought present in all of our minds. I look down at the disc with furrowed eyebrows, honing in on its crystalline surface. It looks like the heart of clouds in diamond form, reflecting light within itself like a pocket mirror maze.  _ This was made by transmuting quintessence. Creating something out of nothing.  _ I frown a little to myself as I flurry through my memories, something being brought to the forefront,  _ Allura said she thought what my stone did to make Kevin was something like quintessence transmutation, it had made Kevin out of nothing but air. Except, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it just altered the quintessence of the air  _ **_into_ ** _ Kevin’s quintessence to make him what he is.  _

_ If the White Lion’s stone really can transmute quintessence… maybe it can make a new disc. But where would that original quintessence come from? The air again? Can I even draw upon that? How can I even begin to- _

Something tugs on my neck, and I look down at my chest with wide eyes to see Kevin coming to life. “Shit!” I start as the small creature leaps off of the stone and flies into the air, hovering over the broken disc with small, crackling cries like stepping on bits of glass. I look over at the others to see them looking at me with similarly shocked expressions. 

“Dude, holy crow, it’s  _ moving! _ ” Hunk cries, pointing at Kevin as he lands upon the crystal’s surface. 

“What’s it doing?” Pidge asks with wide eyes, moving closer with white light reflecting in her glasses. 

I blink stupidly at Kevin as he noses the diamond disc, looking up at me with an expectant gaze when I hear Keith’s voice rumbling, “You’re stone’s glowing.” 

That’s when I feel it. It’s like a hot poker stabbed itself into my chest and started  _ pulling _ , hooking and yanking my veins out of my body like uprooting weeds, and it  _ hurts.  _ It leaves me cold and burning all at the same time, stabbing pain ripping from my arms and my legs and my chest and my head… Immediately my vision starts to swim, I’m barely aware of the noise I make when I feel myself stumbling. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I feel arms bracing me from behind as I try to stand but it’s getting worse, I feel myself going completely limp like my whole body just hit the off button and nothing works anymore. All I can see is bright white light between my eyelashes and all I can hear is a clamor of voices all mixing and sloshing together like a margarita maker. 

Just as suddenly as it comes it passes, leaving me feeling hollow and sick. I groan and roll my head side to side as I return a bit more to myself, I realize then I’m sitting on the floor with something warm pressed against my back. My eyes flicker open and I can see the engine room walls, the world is no longer spinning but everything seems really bright, I find myself blinking to try and clear my eyes of the spots dancing in front of them. 

“Will, are you okay?” Lance’s voice bashes through my thoughts like a freight train and I have to put my hands to my head as the  _ ferocious  _ migraine flares to life, my entire head feels like it has its own pulse.  _ I feel like I just laid my head down on a train track and then was forced to take the Galaxy Garrison exam after the train splashed my brains across the track, it feels like I just had my veins ripped out of my body and I’m left like empty soil, I’m on fire and in a vat of ice all at once.  _

“ _ Ngh, God,  _ what the  _ fuck  _ just happened?” I moan under my breath, trying again as I shake my head and open my eyes. I can see the others clustered around me with varying expressions of worry, but luckily their faces don’t spin, so I expect that means I’m doing better than I was a second ago. 

“It looks like you got hit in the face with a frying pan or something.” Hunk answers helpfully, his voice isn’t particularly loud but it makes the massive headache I’ve contracted ache a little more.  _ Oh my GOD, my head… Ow, ow, ow…  _

“I feel like it.” I mumble. I sit up, planting my hands on the ground to support myself and that’s when I feel something pressed in the palm of my hand, something smooth and hard that makes a hard  _ clack  _ sound on the metal floor; I rub my eyes with one hand and open my fist in the other.

Nestled in my palm looks just like the broken crystal when it was brand new, shining in all its glory like the reward from a heist I don’t remember carrying out, it’s whole and glimmering like it was always meant to be. I blink once, twice, and based on the deafening, stunned silence in the room the others are just as shocked as I am. 

“I can’t believe it.” Coran murmurs, his eyes are wider than saucers, “... You made a carbine disc.”

“How is that possible?” Lance asks with wide eyes, turning from me to the broken stone on the desk to the one in my hand before he states, “I thought you guys said you needed some forgotten recipe or whatever to do that?”

Allura kneels down in front of me and rests one of her palms on the center of my forehead like she’s testing for a fever, her sapphire eyes glimmer with worry like stones beneath a crashing wave. Immediately the ache in my head eases at the drop of a bandwidth, I sigh and lean more into her hand like a cat seeking pets. 

“I have no idea what you did, but your quintessence has been…  _ drained. _ ” Allura states with a tone of shock, letting her hand drop to her lap where she kneels in front of me. I pout at her with a soft, remised sigh.  _ Aww, that felt so nice… But my headache is not nearly as bad, so at least there’s that. I can listen to their voices without wanting to smash my face against the wall to lessen the pain.  _

“It’s the White Lion’s stone.” A voice that I more feel than hear rumbles behind me, vibrating against my back like I’m leaning on a subway wall. I glance back and see Shiro, who I realize is the person I’m leaning on, and whose arms are braced on my shoulder and side to keep me steady. He meets my gaze evenly as I blink slowly with no comprehension as he murmurs, “It started to glow, and that’s when you fell.”

I narrow my eyes and grumble, hanging my head to look down at the stone accusingly. Kevin crawls up my chest and wraps himself around the stone once more, giving me one final blink before he hardens, freezing himself along the side of the stone like he wasn’t just flying through the air. “This thing’s really not doing me any favors.” I mutter briefly, pressing my palm to my head before I hold out the fresh made disc, opening my eyes to look at Allura as she peers at me with worry. “But however it happened, you said you needed a new one. So here you go. New one. Brand new. Provided from your friendly neighborhood White Paladin. Holographic panels sold separately.”

_ “Argh.”  _ Pidge hisses with a frown, crossing her arms as she looks down at my place on the floor, “I wish I’d had your stone hooked up when that happened! Think you can do it again?”

“No way!” I look up with a raised eyebrow to see Keith, he was standing just out of my line of sight behind Shiro’s place on the floor with me. He glares at Pidge with an accusing look, a dark light burning in his eyes that I don’t recognize,  “He almost passed out doing it once!”

Allura turns to look at me with a serious expression, her hands cupping mine as she takes the crystal clear disc out of my hand and into hers, “Do you know what happened?” She asks with a soft, non-accusatory tone. 

I look at her and then at the disc in her hands, shaking my head with a tired sigh, “I-I don’t know. I was just thinking about how you were telling me Kevin might’ve been the product of transmutation, and that maybe my stone could make a new crystal or whatever but I was just wondering where the quintessence would come from to make it, because you said you needed to have original quintessence to morph it, right? And then I got this…  _ ngh.  _ I feel like my veins got ripped out of my body.” I shudder, wrapping my arms around my shoulders with my gaze cast to the side, “And now my head hurts like a  _ motherfucker _ , I don’t know what I did but it fucking sucked.”

“Your stone must’ve somehow used your own quintessence to make the carbine disc.” Coran states with an incredulous tone, his eyes are wide and starry. Allura holds up the crystal disc to him and he takes it at hand, examining it closely held up to his eye before he lets out a gasp, “It’s impeccable!”

“It fuckin’ better be.” I grumble, holding a hand against my temple to ease the pressure, then I feel Shiro’s hand on my shoulder, holding me steady. Gratefully I lean against him, groaning under my breath without my consent as the migraine pulses against my palm.

“Does that mean we can get the wormholer working?!” Hunk cries excitedly, perking up so much visibly that, despite how much I wanna keel over and die, I can’t help a slight smile.  _ At least he’s feeling better, now. At least we’re all okay now, we need that wormholer to escape bad situations like with Zarkon chasing us.  _

_ That sucked so much ass, but… I think it was worth it.  _

“Absolutely.” Coran says with a deft nod, grasping the disc in his hand with a sudden renewal of energy, “With the new carbine disc, I think I can have the teludav ready to wormhole by the time we get to the Blade of Marmora’s base tomorrow!” 

Suddenly, strong arms from behind me loop under mine and lift me up like I’m a cat, one of my arms go across Shiro’s shoulder as he turns to me with a worried set in his brow, “We should get you to the medbay.” 

“I’m not sure what good that will do.” Allura counters with furrowed eyebrows, fixing me with a concerned expression, “The healing pods are for physical wounds, not for replacing lost quintessence.”

I flash her a grin and disengage my arms from Shiro, and despite how my legs kinda feel like jelly I feel confident when I say that I feel much better than I did a second ago. “I’ll be _ fine _ ,” I say with a dismissive wave, running a hand through my hair, “What’s a little quintessence sucking?” 

Lance makes eye contact with me at this moment and as soon as he does he snickers. One look from Shiro silences him, however, so instead he looks down at his boots with renewed interest.  _ My head still hurts like a bitch and my arms ache, but the burn and icy feeling is gone. Whew. I’m okay. Even if I’m not I gotta put on a facade so the others don’t worry about me. Hey, I can stand now, at least.  _

“Your quintessence will be able to rejuvenate, but it will take time.” Coran says after a moment, his eyebrows set as he turns his quicksilver gaze to Allura, “After the ordeal with Zarkon, it took you a few days until your quintessence was restored.” He turns and looks back at me again, “I expect it’ll be similar but perhaps something more like a day for you.”  

I blink in surprise, suddenly focusing in raptly on Allura’s face. Her eyes are downcast and her face is completely expressionless save for the slight dimple forming between her eyebrows. “Wait, what?” Lance asks, looking at Coran with wide eyes, “What do you mean?” 

“Zarkon tried to suck out your quintessence?” I ask with a soft voice that’s hardly questioning, watching her unchanging expression closer.  _ If it felt anything like what I just felt, then… Jesus Christ…  _

“Yes.” Allura states with such stark darkness in her voice that I’m a bit taken aback. After a moment she raises her strange eyes to regard each of us for a moment before she lets out a soft sigh, “I’m fortunate you arrived when you did.”

Something clicks in my mind, two connects to two and I let out a short breath, “Allura.” I state, bringing her attention to me. I look at her with utmost seriousness as I murmur, “You said that that Galra at the space base had to have stored up quintessence for them to be able to expel it into the raw quintessence for that ritual. Quintessence that you said had to have come from elsewhere.” 

Allura nods, and when she reads my expression her ears twitch and her jaw hardens, “Zarkon may very well be absorbing the life force of others in order to feed these  _ druids  _ of his.”

“Naturally Zarkon would try and take Allura’s life force as soon as she arrived.” Coran says with a blackened tone, his eyebrows are furrowed as he regards Allura with a strongly paternal expression, “She has naturally dense and sensitive quintessence. It’s like a cup of water, Allura’s is full and tends to spill outside of her, which is how the Castle was able to wormhole without her when she was being held by Zarkon.”

“But you said that it had to be the same _ type  _ of quintessence.” Pidge counters, her eyebrows furrowed where she stands with her arms crossed beside a quiet, tranquil standing Hunk. “So that means that they can’t be using  _ anyone’s  _ quintessence to do that, Allura’s or else.” 

“Perhaps, but I can’t say for certain.” Coran nods, his eyebrows furrowed as he rests a hand in between Allura’s shoulderblades. She tenses slightly and looks back at him with a slowly softening gaze as Coran speaks, “I doubt that Zarkon is using Altean quintessence for his rituals for the past thousand years.” 

“He certainly has not.” Allura answers with a frown, her gaze set on the floor, “Which stands the question of what he needs more quintessence for.” 

“The Blade of Marmora will have answers.” Keith states confidently, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression I can only describe as fiercely determined.  _ He’s so visibly tense, he looks like he could burst and sprint out of the room at the drop of a hat, what’s got him worked up like this?  _ “They’ve been working on the inside to take Zarkon down for a thousand years.”

“One thing at a time.” Shiro says with a resolute nod in Keith’s direction. I shift on my feet and feel Shiro’s fingertips on my back, as if checking to make sure I don’t topple over again. “Right now we have to focus on getting them to join the Voltron Alliance, then we’ll work together to get all the answers we need.” 

“So, this is awesome,” Hunk pipes up suddenly, smiling victoriously at each of us with his palms up, “Crisis averted, wormholer’s gonna be back up and running, we learned something new, all in all, gotta call this a win.” 

I let out a breath and nod, resting my hands on my waist as I turn over my shoulder to look at Shiro, “Alright team leader, we headed for training now?” 

“Yes we are.” Shiro says before he fixes a hand on my shoulder, giving me a meaningful look, “ _ You  _ are gonna go and rest.” 

Immediately I bristle, giving him a sharp glare, “Hey, I told you I’m fine.”

“And that’s good.” Shiro says with a nod, disengaging from me as the others begin to filter out of he room, “Rest today so you’ll be in top shape when we get to the Blade of Marmora’s base tomorrow.” 

I frown, taking a step forward, “But Shiro-!” 

A hand rests on my shoulder, stopping my movement, “Will, Shiro’s right, you need to rest.” I glance at Allura’s steadfast gaze, but when I turn to argue more the others have already left the engine room behind, their voices are echoing in the hall beyond. 

“... Fine then, I guess.” I mutter, frowning deeply as I set my jaw against the ache in my chest that’s beyond the rude rip of my body’s quintessence out of me,  _ whatever the fuck that means.  _

“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel.” Allura murmurs with a gentle rub of my shoulder as I turn to face her, her hand drops as she continues, “Don’t worry. If you’d like company…?” 

I look at Allura for a long moment with a slight smile, slowly nodding as I let out a slow breath, “... Yeah, that would be pretty great, if you don’t mind. If nothing else… I have so many questions about…” I gesture to the floor where I just was, my eyebrows furrowing as I let out a loud, annoyed huff. “I didn’t feel like that when Kevin manifested. Why was this different?”

Allura glances back over her shoulder at Coran, who has already taken up position at the back of the teludav to install the new carbine disc. After a brief pause she turns to me and touches my arm, gesturing with an arm to the doorway, “Let’s get you resting first with some lunch, then we can talk.”

I huff indignantly but allow myself to be led, mostly because as soon as I start walking my head starts to pound all over again, my limbs feel like they’re made of rubber and I’m just walking through space and time on another dimension; it feels like when you’ve been awake for more than twenty hours and everything, the air, the ground, breathing, it starts to feel a little fake. Fortunately it gets better as we go, I feel less and less like a wrung rubber chicken that is, when Allura leads me to the hanger lounge after stopping by the kitchen for some food goo. She sits down on one of the cushions and gestures for me to do the same, the clink of the bowls of goo resting on the coffee table in the middle of the circular couch. I immediately flop onto my back and kick my legs up on the back of the couch, resting my arms behind my head with a loud groan. 

Allura laughs softly under her breath, “Still feeling fine, you say?”

I shoot her a look over my head, “Peachy.” She raises an eyebrow at me curiously but based on the tone of my voice she must’ve been able to extrapolate my meaning even if the word was unfamiliar, as she chuckles with a brilliant smile. Looking at her now, questions circling my head and up and down the lounge, one comes to the forefront. 

“So, about what I asked before,” I say, frowning as I drape an arm over my eyes to block out the lights, “Why did this suck so much this time to make something? Like, when the stone made Kevin, I didn’t feel anything at all, but this time… well yeah. Why is that do you think?”

Allura doesn’t answer for a few minutes, “I cannot say I know for sure. I theorize that perhaps it was your lion used her own quintessence to create Kevin, but this time, because you two have a tighter bond, it drew upon yours instead.”

“Seems as good an explanation as any.” I mutter with a wry smirk, letting my arm fall to my side. We sit for a few minutes in silence as I mull over my thoughts.  _ That was absolutely insane. Holy shit. I made the fucking disc. Well, I don’t think  _ **_I_ ** _ did, it was the stone, it just used me as a source to make the thing. So that means Allura was right; my stone can transmute quintessence. Allura’s got a good grasp on how quintessence works, I see this evidently. Like… she really knows. She knew just by looking at me that I’d gotten my quintessence drained, then she touched me and… it all felt better.  _ A question forms.

“How can you see our quintessence?” I ask after a moment, turning slightly to look at Allura more fully, “Like, when we first got here you said you could see our lions’ quintessences matched with each of us and that’s how you knew which of us was supposed to be who’s paladin. And just now you could tell my quintessence has been drained. How can you tell?” 

Allura tilts her head to the side, her ears twitching minutely as she thinks to herself before she speaks in a thoughtful manner, “Do you remember when I told you that the Mark of the Chosen in Alteans is a more metaphysical sign of one’s ability to manipulate quintessence?” When I nod she proceeds with her hands folded in her lap, “I’m able to see the quintessence patterns in others, and I can change the flow and movement of quintessence to things in my immediate vicinity. These are the types of traits, signs, of an Altean having the Mark of the Chosen.” Allura’s voice trails off, her hands gliding to her face and touching the pink marks under her eyes. 

I sit up, leaning my arms on the back of the couch as I face her a little more seriously, “That’s incredible.”

“My people would agree with you.” Allura says with a shy smile, her gaze flickering to the side pensively, “It’s how I’m able to connect with the lions despite not being a paladin, their quintessences are constantly moving, through them, around them, especially when their paladins are nearby.” She glances over at me with a smile, her ears twitching briefly as she speaks, “When you collapsed, I saw your quintessence being pulled out of you, through your lion’s amulet, and into the carbine disc.” She reaches out towards me and rests a finger on the Whie Lion’s stone on my chest.

I look down at it once Allura’s hand recedes, staring at the stone’s surface as more questions begin to rise to the surface, stirring and muddling my thoughts all together until I can gather a few pieces together to be coherent. I reach out and grab a bowl of food goo as my stomach begins to growl, spooning some into my mouth as I think about how I want to go about my question.

“So… King Alfor was the Red Paladin.” Allura meets my gaze after a moment of silence and then nods, so I continue while speaking with my hands, “But you said they never mentioned anything about there being stones with them. Do you think they had them?”

Allura shakes her head with a soft exhale, her gaze falling to her hands, “I was not exactly involved in the Paladins’ affairs until just before Zarkon turned on the others. At that point they had been the Paladins of Voltron for at least half a century or more, so the learning that you and the other paladins are receiving now is something that they had long before figured out together. It’s possible I just… didn’t know.” She looks away with furrowed eyebrows, her hands clasped tightly in her lap like they’re each hanging on to the other.

“Damn.” I murmur, frowning as my gaze flickers across her features, which are downcast and thoughtful. She truly is what I’d consider elven beauty to be, ethereal and almost too beautiful to be a mortal being, especially with her eyes that look like gems a dragon would hoard. It makes me wonder what other Alteans looked like, because between Allura and Coran there is a huge range of visual aesthetics that I can imagine.  _ Especially since they can, for the most part, change their appearance on command. Not shapeshifting quite, but if Allura’s Galra disguise is anything to go by, it’s pretty damn close. _

“I’m sorry, I… I don’t mean to be interrogating you like this, I just have so many questions…”

Allura nods in understanding, crossing her ankles, “If I had any answers for you I would gladly give them.”

I let out a sigh after a moment and slump, setting my empty food bowl down and kicking my feet up on the table, closing my eyes after a beat, “... Thank you, Allura. I really appreciate it.” 

“Did that help at all?” I mutely shake my head with a slight shrug, to which Allura responds after a moment, “I’m sorry, I wish I knew more.”

I wave her off, opening my eyes to flash her a lazy grin, “Hey, don’t worry about it. I should get used to being confused.” I rub my temples letting out a soft sigh as I rest the back of my head against the couch cushion. 

“Does your head still hurt?” Allura asks, I can see her watching me out of my peripheral. 

I shake my head, giving her a slight smile, “Not as bad anymore. Speaking of which, what did you do earlier that made it get better? ‘Cause that was  _ the shit. _ ”

Allura flushes, laughing rather loudly all of a sudden before she clears her throat, recovering her demeanor and after a beat she speaks, “I passed along some of my quintessence to you to try and alleviate your pain.”

I frown a little at this, thinking of that painful tugging sensation I felt as I sit up a little more and look at her seriously, “That didn’t hurt you, did it?”

Allura shakes her head, “No, not at all. It’s a part of my abilities, with the quintessence I have it wouldn’t have started to hurt unless I tried to completely…  _ refill  _ your quintessence, I suppose is the way to put it. You will be able to regenerate your own quintessence in no time, I can see it already.” Allura gestures vaguely to my face, shifting to sit on her ankles beneath her on the couch surface. 

I purse my lips and relax back into the cushions, sated by this. “It’s remarkable, actually,” Allura murmurs after a moment, pulling my gaze back to her, “Given the amount that was taken, you are returning to a normal level far quicker than I thought.”

“Lucky me.” I jest with a slight grin, tilting my head to the side as I think aloud, “If my lion’s stone is capable of doing that transmutation stuff, then maybe one of the things that makes our quintessences special is that we can like, regenerate them quicker so accomodate for that ability, you know? ‘Cause how stupid would it be to have a paladin that regenerates quintessence slowly when the stone the paladin uses takes quintessence to do stuff with sometimes, right?”

Allura blinks for a moment in surprise, making a soft noise in her throat before she echoes, “... Right.” 

“Right.” I agree, shutting my eyes as I let out a slow sigh. 

My head doesn’t hurt much anymore, it’s just a dull ache like I’d been decked a couple hours ago,  _ which is, you know, accurate.  _ I just feel generally worn out, like a cloth that was wrung out so often that the thread is coming undone. 

“Will, I’d like to get to know you better.” Allura says suddenly after a moment. I raise an eyebrow and glance over at her with a touch of incredulousness. She’s sitting atop her ankles with her hands working their way through her hair, combing it with her fingers as she elaborates, “But only if that is a welcome topic for you. I don’t want to overexert you.”

I shrug, leaning my head back against the cushions and shutting my eyes, rumbling after a moment, “Well, what do you wanna know?”

“... What is your favorite color?” 

I blink and look at her with a raised eyebrow. Upon seeing my expression she backtracks with a shy expression, “Lance told me that that’s an excellent ‘ice breaker’ he called it, a question to commence situations such as these so more discussion afterwards is more natural.” 

“Hmm.” I hum under my breath, shrugging a little after a moment, “... Alright then. He’s not wrong. Erm… Green. It’s pretty, it’s the color of leaves, and grass, and trees… All good things.” I return my gaze to Allura’s after a moment, “What about you?”

Allura smiles slightly, “Blue! The quieter kind, like this.” She touches one of the couch cushions, one that is a light, robin’s egg blue. 

I shift, sitting up a little more so I can rest my arms on the back of the couch, “That’s funny, I see you wearing a lot more pink than anything else, I thought that would be it.” 

Allura visibly quiets, her shoulders curl slightly inward as her hands move to her chest, where the bubblegum colored symbol of Voltron is illustrated on her armor, “No, not quite. It’s the Altean color for mourning. We wear the color on some part of our bodies for a decapheeb when the mourning period passes.”

“Oh.” I mutter lamely, sitting up a little more and resting my hands in my lap, “... I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” 

“It’s alright.” Allura says with a slight nod of appreciation in my direction, keeping her gaze on her hands. 

We sit together in silence for a long, awkward minute before I find a way to break it, “People on Earth wear black in a similar sort of way. Some people do it more religiously than others, but for funerals and stuff people would always wear black.” 

Allura raises an eyebrow curiously, her head tilted to the side as she suddenly scoots forward and closer to me, leaning in and speaking in a quieter tone, “Does that mean that Shiro and Keith have been mourning?”

I blink for a solid beat before I let out a loud laugh, shaking my head quickly as I stutter, “No, no, I think that’s just an aesthetic choice for them, Keith specifically. Shiro may just be really committed to the Black Lion’s Paladin look.”

“Oh.” Allura smiles sheepishly, covering a hand over her mouth to suppress a laugh before she turns to face me, “Alright, so your favorite color is green…”

“-And yours is blue.” I reply in kind, cocking an eyebrow at her with a wide smirk, “Got any more paradigm altering questions I may answer for you?”

Allura looks around the room as if she’s checking to ensure we’re alone before she swiftly nods, turning to me with an underspoken tone, “What are Keith’s aspects that appeal to you?”

If I was drinking something I would’ve spat it out all over the floor that’s how hard I choked.  _ “What?!”  _ My entire face flushes a bright red, I shift to sit upright with my face in my hands before I look at her between my fingers, “What do you  _ mean? _ ”

Allura looks at me with wide, stunned eyes, continuing with a bit less confidence than before, “... What appeals to you? What is it about him that makes you like him romantically?” 

I let out a high pitched breath like a broken oxygen canister, running a hand through my hair that’s about as red as my face at the moment before I answer, “Can I ask  _ why  _ you’re asking?” 

“I’m curious!” Allura declares, turning towards me with her hands clasping her ankles, “... I love romantic novella, and this is the closest thing I’ve got to it at the moment.” 

I give her a dead panned expression before I bury my face into my hands, groaning loudly in complaint before I let my hands drop to my lap, smacking my lips before I turn and face Allura, “Alright. Allura, I’m just gonna say this right now, anything that I ever tell you about things even a  _ little  _ related to this is  _ never  _ spoken of again. Promise?”

Allura’s practically shaking in excitement like an enthused dog with the promise of a walk, but her voice is serious as she answers, “I promise!”

I let out a long, drawn out sigh as I contemplate what sort of karma it is that I’m experiencing before I start talking, “Alright, what is it you asked? What do I like about him?” I purse my lips and for a brief moment I give it serious thought.  _ What do I like about Keith? Fucking everything, where do I fucking start?  _ “He’s brave as hell. He’s not afraid to do what he thinks is right. The others call that impulsive, but… I don’t know, I’m kind of jealous of that. I can’t do anything without thinking about it twenty seven times, resolving to do twenty seven different things before I resort to the first idea once it’s all over.” I let out a sigh, feeling my face burning up just thinking about it, “He’s reserved, too, like, he doesn’t say anything unless it’s worth being said. I know a lot of people who talk just for the sake of talking or just to fill the silence, but he’s okay with there being silence like that. It’s cool.” After a brief moment of silence I glance over at Allura’s expectant expression and then relent, “Also he’s pretty fuckin’ nice to look at.”

“Oh, that’s precious.” Allura coos, shifting now to sit fully facing me, “Tell me more!” 

“For fuck’s sake.” I grumble, letting out a loud breath in complaint.  _ What else can I say? Why else do I like him? Does there need to be anything else?...  _

_ There is more though. To be honest, I like everything about Keith, from his devil may care attitude to his brash impulsiveness… but at the end of the day, I can’t help thinking about how he came and sought me out after what happened at Zarkon Central to apologize because he thought what happened to me was his fault. Or about when I told him to stop at the Olkari party he did, or how he asked if it was okay for him to be leaning on my shoulder when I was carrying his drunk ass back from the party, or about when he’d grabbed my arm on day one to steady me when I was shaking. That’s what I like about Keith Kogane and that’s something I can’t possibly phrase in words. I do know how Keith makes me feel, though. I think that’s the thing that keeps dragging me back to him no matter how many times I keep telling myself to stop, because it’s like crack, I just can’t get enough, I always come back for more because I get high off that feeling he gives me. _

“I don’t know. I just… like being around him.” I furrow my eyebrows, tilting my head to the side as I speak, “My head’s always spinning, at any given time I’ll be thinking about insanity this, lions that, trauma there, Zarkon next, et cetera, but with him… Being near him is one of those rare times that my thoughts are quiet.” I murmur pensively, I’m looking at my lap but my eyes are truly thinking about the swirling galaxies I see in Keith’s. “I don’t know, something about him shuts off my thoughts, and when they’re constantly running around rampant all the time… it’s such a relief to finally have some silence.”

Allura hums in response but doesn’t say anything, her hands on her knees as she looks at me with a childlike expression full of wide eyed wonder.  _ Oh geez, that was kind of a lot of oversharing. But she did ask. I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t be saying any of this at all, putting them out there, whether Allura repeats it or not… it makes these feelings more real. Feelings I need to bury because I’m too scared to think of the implications if they were to get out of control again like before we went to Olkarion.  _

“You should tell him how you feel.” Allura says suddenly after a moment, bringing me out of my inner thoughts and back to her, “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. We  _ all  _ have. It’s getting borderline painful to see you dancing around one another, as adorably sweet as it is.” 

_ Oh God, am I really being that obvious? Oh fucking shit, this is worse than I thought.  _

After looking at her for a long moment I speak in a harder tone, no thinking necessary, “There’s no way that that’s happening.”

Allura blinks at me, completely stunned for a solid minute before she proclaims, “What? Why?”

I furrow my eyebrows, looking down at my hands for several long minutes before I answer, “There’s a lot you don’t know, Allura, a lot that I can’t really explain, but I…” I backtrack, shaking my head slightly as I restart, “What exactly is there to be gained by telling him how I feel? Whether he feels the same way or not, what exactly are we supposed to do about it?” I wave my hands in the air with a dismissive tsk, feeling my shoulders sag, “We’re in the middle of an intergalactic war, fighting some evil, thousand year old dictator who has been alive for far longer than he was supposed to be, and what, we’re supposed to fuckin… date or something? No.” I shake my head again sternly, setting my eyebrows in a constant furrow, “... No way that that’s happening with the current state of affairs.” 

Allura is quiet, I can’t find the courage to lift my gaze up and meet hers even though I feel them searching my expression. After a long while, it feels like hours, seconds, she speaks, “Sometimes having these emotions in states such as these is the perfect time.” 

I give her a deadpan look and scoff, but otherwise don’t respond. 

“It’s not so juxtaposing, you know.” I look up at Allura with curiosity as she meets my gaze with a surprisingly serious expression, “Nothing has to be  _ done  _ about how you feel, but simply not having those feelings be said doesn’t have to be the only option.” I open my mouth to argue but Allura plunders on without pause, “But something’s telling me that that’s not the  _ real  _ reason you’re afraid, is there?”

I balk. There are few times in my life where I find myself speechless but this is one of them, I stare at Allura’s face with my mouth open but I can’t find a single word to come out. Instead, a memory I’d buried deep in my consciousness resurges forward with the reminder.  _ ‘What’re you so afraid of?’  _

…  _ I am afraid. I can’t even say for sure what of. Rejection, maybe, but it’s nothing so droll, I can think of two main instances why I can feel rest assured that it isn’t that I’m afraid Keith isn’t gay or something. No, honestly, it’s what happens after. What the hell am I supposed to do if Keith and I were to verbalize what’s going on and be on the same page? I haven’t had feelings for someone this strongly since Damien. Am I really ready to do this again? What if it’s just like last time? Damien was an amazing guy when I met him, the ultimate catch: smart, funny, amazingly clever and witty, and goddamn did he know his way around the sheets, but that all changed. Why? Because of me.  _ **_I_ ** _ changed him,  _ **_I_ ** _ morphed him into that person I can almost call a monster by the end, one I never fully realized until his ship had gone missing like the two before it. It was his ship that made the Galaxy Garrison stop sending ships out to Kerberos. And what would’ve happened if it hadn’t, if he had come back to Earth? Fuck if I know, that shit haunts me to this day at what would’ve happened, to me, to him. Keith is a flawed person, he isn’t perfect, so if I can do that to someone who looks so impeccable on the surface like Damien was, God, what hell could I inflict on Keith? I already caught myself in a Jax situation with him, pushing him farther than he may have been ready for, within a damn minute of having that gay revelating moment. If we got on that same page, put whatever label you want on it after it, that’ll just open him to whatever the hell it is about me that corrodes and infects everyone I get close to. _

“Will?” I blink a little as Allura’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, centering back on her sapphire eyes that glimmer in concern. 

“I…” I stutter and start to speak right as the door opens. The others come piling in from the hangers, visibly tired but otherwise jovial, Lance has his elbows resting on Hunk and Shiro’s shoulders like he’s a main artist on the front cover. 

“Hey, Will, how’s lazing around going?” Pidge cries cheerfully, running her hands through her choppy hair that’s curled in awkward positions thanks her helmet. 

“Um.” I feel completely discombobulated, like the others just walked in on my thoughts getting scrambled on a frying pan and then dumped back in my skull for me to try and separate egg white from yolk, and much to my horror it doesn’t go unnoticed. Shiro pauses and looks at me with an immediate concerned expression, making my heart leap up into my throat when I look beyond him at Keith. He’s just pulled his jacket back on, running his hands through the fringes of his hair to get it unstuck from the collar, and when he’s straightened the front he meets my gaze and my gay panic is so sudden and immediate that I feel my throat physically constrict. 

“Feeling great.” I stammer after a moment, glancing down over at Allura so fast that I don’t actually see her face as I rise, dusting myself off as I head towards the door, “Was just thinking about heading to bed. Long day ahead, you know? Blade of Marmora’s base tomorrow, so exciting, I’ll be sure to see y’all in the morning ready to go. Sleep well!” I throw the last few words over my shoulder as the door closes behind me, letting out a sharp breath as I walk down the hallway as fast as I dare.  _ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Of course they had to walk in at that moment when Allura, for all intents and purposes, emotionally pantsed me. I don’t blame her, it was a legit question, but I am so fucking angry that how I’m so easily read like that, she saw through a minor lie I hadn’t even realized was a lie until she’d pointed it out. What’s worse, she told me that the others see it too, apparently every damn person on this fucking ship knows that I’ve caught gay feelings, including Keith himself, which is really gonna hurt my chances of getting over this. I don’t care what she says, there’s no way I’m pursuing anything with Keith, not if it’s just gonna lead to me hurting him, not if the price for my minute happiness is permanent damage, damage I always leave. _

Fortunately the time sitting down with Allura has done a miracle on my current physical state as I don’t feel any shakiness at all, but by the time I’ve made it to my room another migraine has begun to form, though in comparison to what it was before it’s basically nothing. I curl my nose and shut the door quickly, getting into pajamas so I can go to bed. I’m not actually ready to sleep yet, but I want to be able to just keel over when I’m ready to.  _ I can’t believe I’m still so fucking gay. Why does this always happen? I can’t believe I’m thinking about how gay I am when I just learned that my lion’s stone can do quintessence transmutation, somehow my fucking feelings matter more than my abilities to actually save the fucking universe, what is  _ **_wrong_ ** _ with me? _

_ What is wrong with me? _

My eyes graze the room and they hitch on the wall by my door. My guitar rests like a pair of familiar jeans draped on the back of a chair, the dark mahogany wood almost black against the whiteness of the wall.  _ Someone must have returned it here after our sleepover the other night. That’s… so sweet.  _   
Frowning, I reach out and grab it, cradling it in my lap as I move and recline in my bed, letting my head rest on the pillow. Without much thought I slowly begin to strum, furrowing my eyebrows as I let the notes flow out, replacing each thought that threatens to break my skull open with a chord, wordlessly searching.  _ Just me. It’s just me and the notes. Nothing but me and my music, no gay thoughts, no selfishness, no terror of what the fuck I am capable of… None of that right now.  _

My hands tremble as I slide down some chords right as I come across a sound I recognize, a song I’d long forgotten learning. I bite my lip as I follow the sound, retracing the chords I’d learned as I recall its progression, its rise and fall. The others probably left for dinner, so I’m alone in the hallway; even so, I doubt the others could hear me if I were to sing right now in the privacy of my own room. I close my eyes, crossing my legs in my lap as I strum the notes to the long forgotten song. 

_ “They send me away to find them a fortune, _ _   
_ _ A chest filled with diamonds and gold, _ _   
_ _ The house was awake, the shadows, the monsters, _ _   
_ __ The hallways, they echoed and groaned,

_ I sat alone, in bed ‘til the morning, _ _   
_ _ I’m crying, ‘They’re coming for me,’ _ _   
_ _ And I tried to hold these secrets inside me _ _   
_ __ My mind’s like a deadly disease.” 

I close my eyes, humming softly to myself with the flow of the song, it’s quiet and haunting and permeating like the ache of a broken bone that persists for years long after it’s healed, but with the quiet longing and frustration that draws deep from my soul. I curl my nose as it feels like the words are tugged out, a hook sunk into the flesh of my lips and pulling this cold feeling out with it.

_ “I’m bigger than my body, _ _   
_ _ I’m colder than this home, _ _   
_ _ I’m meaner than my demons, _ _   
_ __ I’m bigger than these bones.

_ And all the kids cried out, ‘Please stop, you’re scaring me!’ _ _   
_ _ I can’t help this awful energy, _ _   
_ _ You’re goddamn right, you should be scared of me,  _ _   
_ __ Who is in control?”

I shiver, frowning to myself as I get lost in the song, I don’t know where the internalized fear from the song begins and my own ends, and frankly I think that’s the point. It’s supposed to speak to me this way. That’s part of why I learned it. 

_ “I paced for hours on ending, _ _   
_ _ I jumped at the slightest of sounds. _ _   
_ _ And I couldn’t stand the person inside me, _ _   
_ __ I turned all the mirrors around.

_ I’m bigger than my body, _ _   
_ _ I’m colder than this home, _ _   
_ _ I’m meaner than my demons, _ _   
_ __ I’m bigger than these bones.

_ And all the kids cried out, ‘Please stop, you’re scaring me!’ _ _   
_ _ I can’t help this awful energy, _ _   
_ _ You’re goddamn right, you should be scared of me,  _ _   
_ __ Who is in control?”

I furrow my eyebrows with a dry swallow as I shift my grip, turning my head to the side as the cold of the song truly soaks in my bones, recognizing the words that come I realize exactly now why this song had a draw for me.  _ For fuck’s sake. Damn you subconscious fingers.  _

_ “I’m well acquainted with villains that live in my bed, _ _   
_ _ They beg me to write them so they’ll never die when I’m dead, _ _   
_ _ I’ve grown familiar with villains that live in my head, _ _   
_ __ They beg me to write them so I’ll never die when I’m dead.

_ I’m bigger than my body, _ _   
_ _ I’m colder than this home, _ _   
_ _ I’m meaner than my demons, _ _   
_ __ I’m bigger than these bones.

_ And all the kids cried out, ‘Please stop, you’re scaring me!’ _ _   
_ _ I can’t help this awful energy, _ _   
_ _ Goddamn right, you should be scared of me,  _ _   
_ __ Who is in control?”

I abruptly stop, stalling my fingers on the strings and cutting off the sound. I let out a soft, shaky breath, yet somehow the song pulled the gross melancholy and disturbing, internalized terror that clung to me like dew to grass off, I feel a little better but it also continues to persist, like a chill I just can’t shake. I sit up and set my guitar aside, my head hurts far less but with this cold I get into bed and curl up into a ball, pulling the blankets around me tightly. 

_ Enough of self pity, already. We have bigger problems.  _

_ Some of which I hope the Blade of Marmora can help us solve tomorrow.  _

_ “You’re goddamn right, you should be scared of me. Who is in control?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a fuckin wrap for the intermission period between Episodes 7 and 8, congratulations you made it  
> Song is Control by Halsey  
> Next up: one of the main events that I've been wanting to write SO FUCKING BADLY ever since I started writing this fucker last fall, let's fuckin' goooo.


	9. The Blade of Marmora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after a week of travel, the Paladins of Voltron arrive to the Blade of Marmora's main base. Many of the paladins hold high expectations for what the Blade of Marmora has to offer Voltron, answers to the thousands of questions they have been racking up being one of them... But one Paladin has a few more questions than the others.  
> And he will stop at nothing to get them.  
> \---  
> **Warning: Blood and violence**

_ I’m enclosed on all sides by a violet, malevolent light. I can’t see beyond it, it’s like the sun’s rays when they’re glaring too bright right in your eyes and you can’t see anything but its light. I hear a haunting laugh echoing around me but I can’t tell where it’s coming from, it permeates, getting louder and louder until it’s like crashing cymbals against my ears.  _

_ Suddenly the light dies, and I’m left in pitch blackness. I stumble through it, I can feel the presence of something else in this space, I don’t know what it is, I don’t care to know what it is, I just know I need to get it, I need to be there. My hand hits metal and when I look up I see golden eyes staring down at me, except they’re not looking  _ **_at_ ** _ me, but someplace beyond me.  _

_ “Who are you?” _

_ I whirl around to try and find the voice but I can’t see anyone, I see literally nothing, it’s nauseating and giving me vertigo. I push through the darkness, searching for something, I just have to get to it first, I just have to get to it then it’s mine. Why do I want it? _

_ “Who are you?” _

_ Suddenly I crash into something, someone, and I know I’ve found what I was looking for. I hear them hissing as they retract from me but I know they have it, that something I want. I grab their arm and tug them forward, it feels more like I’m watching rather than being an active agent in my actions as I cry, “What’s the point hanging on to it? Let it go!”  _

_ “Never.” This person’s voice is husky and exhausted, like they’ve had this conversation a hundred times but they remain resolute as they stand firm, unyielding to my insistent pulling. Something about it brings me out of this strange headspace I’m crowded into, that I’ve  _ **_been_ ** _ crowded into. What was I looking for? Why am I looking for it? What am I even doing here? _

_ “Who are you? What price will you pay to know?” That voice speaks again, the voice from earlier that gave the space this dark energy, that permeates around the golden eyes hovering in the air. A hand grabs my throat and lifts me in the air, that voice chuckles in a sickening manner, “... Or will  _ **_others_ ** _ pay on your behalf?” _

_ I’m hurled someplace, I let out a cry of surprise as I feel the air rushing through my hair, I collide into something soft and ashy, flaking like salt but soft like snow. I dig my hands into the ground, it’s pitch black and inky, it stains my fingers as I sit upright. When I raise my head I see an ashen sky gilded in gold and burning with crimson fire, beyond I see the rise of a smoky volcano, magma spitting from its snout like an angry viper. I feel a terrible burn in my back, stinging, sharp, and hot like I’m standing too close to a roaring fire. I reach back and touch my skin, looking for what’s wrong until I feel my hands slide on something wet and my skin hitches in pain at my fingers intrusion. I pull my hand back and see they’re covered in bright red blood that shines like a glass in the blackened air, I hear someone calling my name. I’m coughing as the smoke gets in my lungs, everything gets hot and lukewarm inside my mind as my vision starts to swirl around, getting sucked into the ashen ground at my feet.  _

_ I’m pulled up by a pair of hands, my arm is slung across slim shoulders, there’s a hand on my waist supporting me. All of a sudden my knees are weak, I feel light headed, the pain in my back is gone but now there’s a stabbing pain in my side that feels like I’ve been punched with a fork. When I look down to find it I see the hole in my suit, the blood smeared across the white metal of my armor. This looks familiar. _

_ “Woo, that's why white armor is bad. I don't need everyone seeing how much I'm bleeding all over the damn place.” I jest with a wince, leaning more heavily against the person supporting me, someone in white armor and a pink symbol of Voltron etched across her chest.  _

_ “I’m so sorry,” Allura’s choking on a sob, one that brings me out of the swirling headspace I find myself in. When I look over at her I see there are tears in her eyes, shining like diamonds in the sapphires of her eyes. She’s holding onto my tightly, facing me fully now as my legs suddenly buckle and give, next thing I know I’m on the floor. I groan as Allura pulls me upright in her arms, she’s holding onto my face with both hands and that’s when I feel the startling warmth permeating through her hands, it’s almost too hot but it swarms my being like the smell of a fire when you walk into a camping circle.  _

_ “I’m sorry, it’s draining faster than I can replenish it!” Allura’s voice rasps as her hands shake on my skin, “Hold on, Will! Don’t let go!” Allura cries, I can barely see her expression as her hands suddenly begin to glow a soft blue, rising like ethereal smist from her hands and enveloping me in a cosmic light. Her hands are shaking, she’s breathing hard, I can see the pain in her eyes as she lets out a hurting whimper, she’s pushing something into me, like she’s a syringe full of hot cider that’s injecting me, a sink with an open drain. _

_ “Allura, stop.” I murmur. It’s my voice and I’m the one who’s speaking but it feels like the words are puppets on a string, being guided by another hand, “It’s okay… Just let me go. I’m replaceable. You are not.”  _

_ Suddenly everything is black. I slump on the earth, Allura is gone, but the pain in my side persists. Before I can process where I am or what’s happening a fist grabs the front of my armor, a fist that glows a bright neon violet, and then hurls me backwards through the air. I cry out in pain when I hit the ground, the pain in my side cracks through my being like a whip. I fight to my feet with a sudden shock of adrenaline fueled by fear, when I look up I see I’m someplace I’ve never been before; it looks like a volleyball court, the ground is covered in thick sand that makes running difficult, but the difference is that there are violet pillars scattered around the arena like randomized monuments. Beyond this circle of sand are bleachers, packed with glowing, haunting, golden eyes with serpentine pupils that send shivers down my spine, there are so many that it looks like Christmas lights. I’m brought back when I see movement out of the corner of my eye and I barely duck and roll out of the way when the form attacks me, I evade just in time. I stumble back to my feet and duck behind a pillar when a figure in a black suit and a ragged purple cloth draped over their shoulders attacks, their glowing, violet fist breaks through the stone of the pillar and just barely misses my shoulder, but the heat radiating off of its metal surface burns my skin with a sharp, agonizing sting, I pull away with a pained cry. I’m barely able to stand on my feet, everything hurts so badly, when I look up I see the golden eyes of my assailant like the pupil-less eyes of Zarkon, despite the cruel twist of his mouth his face is unmistakable, the scar, the shock of white _ **_._ **

_ “Shiro, stop!” I cry out as he descends, I duck just as his prosthetic whizzes where my head just was but he’s ready for it this time, he knees me directly in the chest and knocks the wind out of me, sending me straight to my back on the sanded ground. A roar of approval echoes in the massive arena, a  _ **_gladiator’s_ ** _ arena, as Shiro’s weight crushes my chest, I look up just in time to see him pull back a fist. I raise my arms over my head to block the punch, pleading outright, “Shiro, stop! It’s me! It’s Will!” His prosthetic grabs my wrists and pins them over my head, and everything screams, all I feel is outright agony and all I can smell is charred meat and burning hair.  _

_ When I peek up through the pain of his prosthetic burning my wrists, screaming and crying, I can see Shiro’s eyes fading, the golden light that seized them flickers like a dying star before I see him again, his eyes like gray clouds in an ashy sky. The burning agony around my wrists suddenly ceases and he releases my wrists, I whimper and pull them to my chest protectively, I can see the meat of my wrists down to the bone, it hurts so badly that it takes all I can bear to simply  _ **_breathe._ **

_ “I-I’m so sorry-” Shiro stutters, getting off of my chest and falling into the sand beside me. I want to say it’s okay, I know, it’s okay, that wasn’t you, but instead I feel an outside force seize my arms and my legs and my mouth, telling me how to act and telling me how to speak even though they aren’t the words I want to say.  _

_ “Stay away from me, you monster!” It makes me cry as I dig my heels into the sand and push myself as far away from him as possible, struggling to stand as I keep my arms pressed tightly to my chest. I turn to escape, internally I’m screaming to stop, to tell Shiro no, he’s not a monster, that’s not what I really think, when the sand below me suddenly opens and I fall into darkness.  _

I suck in breath like I was holding it for too long as I awaken, my fingertips are tingly and my head spins from vertigo. I sit up, holding my hands to my head as I take shallow breaths until it all settles to be more even. “One, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again.” I chant, taking deep breaths slowly but surely as the vertigo passes, my hands run through my hair as I roll over and instinctively grab my notebook, writing down the details of the dream as much as I can remember before I lose it.  _ ‘I was in pitch darkness, looking for something that someone had. Then suddenly I was in Allura’s arms and I was bleeding and she was crying, her hands were glowing blue and she was telling me she was trying to replenish what was lost and I told her it was okay. Then I was in a gladiator arena where I saw Shiro, but it wasn’t Shiro. This Shiro had glowing gold eyes and he had those clothes that Zarkon’s prisoners wear, and he was trying to kill me. He almost succeeded until he snapped out of it. I don’t know what that was all about, but I kept feeling like I was an actor in a play, like these are roles I was filling but they weren’t actually me. I couldn’t actually control what I was doing, I was just going with motions that were already laid out before me, all three of them were like that. It felt like three separate dreams, almost, except it wasn’t. Except it was? Fuck it.’  _

I pause, looking down at the words before I close the spiral bound notebook and set it back on the shelf. I swing my legs off the bed, rubbing my temples as I get up and get ready for the day, and as I do something clenches my stomach in a cold fist. 

_ Today’s the day we finally arrive at the Blade of Marmora’s base. It’s been a week, I hope the trip is worth it. I don’t know, something about this is giving me a bad feeling, I feel like we’re about to walk into a trap. I feel like when we were in Voltron flying towards Zarkon’s ship to save Allura, just a bad pit in the base of my stomach. Something bad is gonna happen, I can just feel it. Maybe it is a trap. I wouldn’t put it past the Galra to have a faux resistance to draw us in. But why would they? This is stupid, what the hell am I even talking about? _

_ Maybe I’m just overthinking it. _

I make it down to the dining hall after I’ve showered, inside everyone is collected save for Keith and Coran. Shiro sits at the head of the table and when I walk in he looks up at me with an expressionless mask, sliding a bowl of goo to the empty chair next to him. “Morning, Will. How are you feeling?”

I look at him and then at the food goo.  _ He’s probably asking why I ran away so fast when everyone got back from training. He was the one who gave me that weird look, after all. Ugh, why does he have to be so damn observant?  _ “Honestly, a lot better. I feel pretty much back to normal, I think I needed the sleep.” I answer as I sit down, when I take a bite I raise an eyebrow over at Shiro with a small, genuine smile, “How are you?”

Shiro nods ambiguously with a shrug as he spoons some goo in his mouth, “Ready for the day.” He says.

“You know, I think I may have pulled a muscle doing our exercises yesterday.” Lance whines, holding his arm in his lap plaintively before he suddenly holds his arms upright, brandishing guns he doesn’t have as he cocks an eyebrow over at Allura, “Good thing I have plenty to spare.”

Allura blinks up at Lance with a raised eyebrow, looking very much as if he had just pulled her deep from the recesses of her thoughts. Pidge grumbles from her place across the table from him and slings some food goo from her spoon like a catapult, smacking him in the cheek.

As Lance shoots Pidge a deathglare Hunk sets his spoon down from his place on the other side of the table, pulling my attention to him, “Alright, so I’m super pumped about finally getting to the Blade of Marmora’s base today, how long do you think until we arrive?” 

“Why don’t we go and see?” Shiro says as he stands up from the table, starting to stack the empty bowls. I add my half full bowl as well, my fingers are twitchy as we collectively move together out of the dining room and towards the bridge.  _ Let’s go see indeed. I hope my gut’s wrong, I’m so nervous that half a bowl of goo is all I can manage.  _

Keith is already on the bridge when we enter, sitting in his seat on the forward right with his elbows on his knees and his eyes on the floor, he doesn’t so much as blink in our direction when we walk in.  _ Wonder how long he’s been sitting here.  _ Coran is already inside as well, standing at the nose of the bridge while his hands flurry across the holographic keys.  _ You know, I always wonder… Does Coran ever sleep? He always seems busy, doing something or another or fixing or whatever the fuck, he’s always moving. He has a hell of a work ethic, I’ll give him that. _

I stand next to Lance to the right of Allura as she strides to her central station, her pillars rising to meet her palms as she immediately gets to work on sliding holographic images and text before her in a complex pattern that makes my head spin. Pidge and Hunk are standing to Allura’s left, looking from her holograms to the glass beyond like they’re waiting for the show to start as Shiro strides forward, looking at the holographic screen that Coran has pulled up at the bow of the bridge. 

“Coran,” Shiro says once he’s standing by the mentioned Altean at the front, “How long until we reach the Blade of Marmora’s base?”

“Based on the coordinates Ulaz gave you, I’d say in a couple of doboshes.” He replies helpfully, his hands are flying across his holographic panel, I can see a trace trajectory of our flight through space. 

“I can’t wait to see it!” I look over at Pidge to see her hands clasped in excited fists, her eyes bright and glimmering and  _ well rested _ as she bounces on her toes, looking over at Hunk and then the rest of us as if for support, “I mean, they were able to fold spacetime, and that was just at an  _ outpost! _ ”

Hunk rests a hand over his stomach with a faraway expression, “Mmm, the space taco. It left us too soon.”

Pidge gives him a deadpan look with furrowed eyebrows, “Well, sure, but my point is, imagine how amazing their home base will be!” She swings her arms out wide, the excitement returning at the drop of a dime.  _ Glad to see at least one of us is excited. I’m nervous as hell, my stomach is tied up in thirty nine different knots and I could literally bounce off the walls, I’m practically vibrating.  _

“Exactly!” Hunk cries with matching excitement as he meets Pidge’s gaze, “It could take on any shape.” He looks off to the side with a dreamy expression, “Like a space jelly donut, or long like a space eclair, or a space cheese blintz with cherry sauce on top! Maybe a little dusting of powdered sugar. That’s the stars.”

Despite how much I feel like I’m about to explode from nervous energy I raise an eyebrow and snort with amusement, “Hunk, we literally just ate and you’re already thinking about food again?”

“Aww!” Lance proclaims where he stands next to me with his arms crossed, “Now  _ I’m _ hungry again!”

“Guys,” Keith states with a tired, edged tone from behind me, pulling our collective gaze to him as he holds his hands out wide from where he sits in his seat, “This is a serious mission. We need to focus.”

Lance makes a mocking pout, turning to look at me with a derisive tone,  _ “‘We need to fooocuuuus.’” _

“The base is within range!” Coran says from the front, pulling all of our eyes forward to where the Castle approaches.

“Bring us in slowly-” Shiro begins as he turns back to look at the glass before he abruptly cuts off, staring out at the space beyond at the sight before us.

It absolutely blows my mind away to try and figure out exactly what it is that I’m looking at. It looks like two black wormholes in parallel with each other, save that the space around them is warping into a sea of mediterranean, black, and gold from the light of faraway stars, and in between them is a massive blue planet the color of azure and electric blue, except it isn’t a planet, as the thousands of shades of bright blue is  _ fire _ .  _ A blue sun _ . This fire is getting sucked from the sun and into the holes in space beside it, making it look like a continuously twisting, massive, glowing, on-fire towel.

“That might be the tiniest bit of a challenge.” Coran mumbles sarcastically. 

Hunk gasps loudly,  _ “Is that a black hole?!”  _

“No, no, no, no, no.” Coran says with a surprisingly lackadaisical tone, “It’s  _ two  _ black holes! And a giant blue star.” 

“... That’s not better.” Hunk whimpers. The black holes aren’t truly black, however, the outsides are swirling thousands of colors, gold and blues primarily but I can see reds, purples, greens, all twisting into one another in a massive, liquid soup swirling around the holes as the blue fire roars between their open maws which are the deepest black I’ve ever seen, they almost look fake they’re so black, like bad photoshop.  _ Whoa…  _

_ Holy. Shit.  _

“No kidding!” Pidge’s voice is factual with awe tinted around its edges, “Just inside a black hole, the temperature is one millionth of a degree above absolute zero. But, just outside of that, in a blue star, it’s hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius!”

“Hundreds of millions of degrees celsius?” I ask, staring at the star in awe before I add with a teasing lilt, “How much is that in American?”

“Oh, okay,” I can see Hunk waving his hands in my peripheral, “It’s like when you try to nuke a frozen burrito in the microwave and it comes out all scorching hot on the outside but it’s still frozen in the middle, right? Except in reverse, because… Yeah.” 

Lance groans from beside me, “And now I’m hungry for lunch!”

“Guys, quiet!” Keith barks abruptly. Only then am I finally able to pull my gaze away from the azure star, looking over at Keith with a raised eyebrow as he rises from his seat, turning his attention to the front as he continues in the same sharpened tone with a hint of exasperation, “Coran, where’s the base located?” 

_ Man, and I thought I was on edge. He looks like a taut, live wire about to snap.  _

Coran waves a hand and brings up holographic circles analyzing the strange phenomenon before us, highlighting the rim of the black holes and of the star, “In between those three deadly celestial bodies.” The hologram pulls on a slight mark on the screen and blows it up for us to see better, showing what looks like a small fragment of land shaped like a scar hovering in the space between the blue star and the black hole, surrounded by what looks like a clear, distinct bubble. I can’t tell it’s anything beyond the scrap of a planet, save for a small, violet light peering from a crevice in the rock like a Galra beacon.

“The perfect defensive position.” Pidge says with a set of her brow looking out the glass as she strides forward to stand on the steps, the blue light reflecting off of her glasses an inferno of azure. 

“Or the perfect trap.” Allura states with a hard tone, her gaze is completely unmoving from the blown up image of the Blade of Marmora base like she’s nothing but a statue. 

“Yeah, you know what, I’m with Allura on this.” Hunk says after a moment, his eyes are wide as he moves his hands from side to side with an obviously scared tone, “Maybe we should, like, not go in there at all?”

I look over at Hunk incredulously but before I can even formulate a thought Keith verbally jumps on him like an attack dog, taking a step forward away from his seat towards him, “What are you  _ talking  _ about?! We  _ have  _ to go in! This is the  _ whole reason  _ we came out here! There is  _ no other option! _ ” I look over at him with wide eyes as he glares directly at Hunk with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his gaze is a dark, dark mediterranean in the light of the blue star shining through the glass. 

_ What the fuck has him so tense?  _

I’m not the only one who notices, as Lance holds his hands up in surrender, “Okay! Geez. Calm down.” He makes a soothing gesture with his hands, and although he initially sounds put off and peeved the rest of his words smooth over in a surprisingly gentle manner, he’s looking at Keith with the same confusion that I feel. Keith sets his brow and turns away with his arms crossed again, a brooding mask so suddenly placed over his features that I blink and his hard look is gone.  _ Jesus Christ. What’s gotten into him?  _

I look down at the front and see the whole ship is looking over in Keith’s direction with mixed variances of surprise, Shiro’s is far more concerned than anything else. Suddenly the bridge flashes red, and a holographic message appears at the front of the ship, projected on the glass. It looks like a series of letters that I’ve never seen before, they aren’t Altean, these are far spikier, kind of similar to nordic runes, come to think of it. The robotic voice of the Castle speaks, translating the message,  _ “Identify yourself.”  _

We all look at each other with wide eyes as Shiro turns to the front, “Open a hailing frequency, Coran.” He does as he asks, typing on his panel briefly before a small  _ ping  _ sounds as a queue for Shiro to speak. “We are the Paladins of Voltron, sent here by Ulaz.” Shiro states in an authoritative, matter of fact tone.   
We stand completely still for a long time, several seconds of absolute dead silence as we stare at the message on the front of the ship. My heart’s clambering into my throat as the bad feeling that was just a bare stone in the pit of my stomach grows until it seeds in my lungs and branches into all through my chest, curling around my ribcage like a choking vine. Suddenly the words change, a new message patching through as the Castle translates,  _ “No more than three may enter. Come unarmed.”  _ The message disappears, leaving the room empty and silent. 

_ Oh my God, I am literally shaking from nerves, I have such a bad, bad feeling about this. We’ve learned our lesson about splitting up, this is a bad idea, oh God, this is a bad,  _ **_bad_ ** _ idea. _

“Why would they insist we come unarmed?” Allura states in a harsh tone, holding her elbows in front of her as she glares at the screen before her eyes drop down to the front, “Shiro, this doesn’t feel right.”  _ I’m so glad I’m not alone in this, she’s right, this doesn’t feel right. At. All.  _

Shiro doesn’t turn around where he stands looking up at the glass, “We’ve come too far to turn back now.” He rumbles in a low tone.

A light flashes at the front panel, Coran suddenly calls, “They just sent us a route to the base! But we’ll have to move quickly.” He pushes the holographic image on his screen to the larger one at the front, showing the path from our position to the base is through a sliver between the swirling azure flames of the blue star, “Because of the solar flares, it’s only open for the next two varga. Then another hole won’t open for about a quintant!” 

“It’s gonna close for a  _ year?! _ ” Hunk gasps with an incredulous raise of his brow, looking at the glass with wide eyes. 

“A  _ day _ .” Pidge corrects, her arms crossed where she stands staring down the blue star with a pensive gaze. 

Hunk purses his lips, “Oh.” 

A hard lump forms in my throat as Coran speaks from his place at the front, “The course to the base will be quite treacherous, to say the least. You’re walking a razor’s edge between the gravitational pull from the black holes and the sun.” Small, trailing lines appear on the holographic image of the course at the front, showing the points of gravitational draw from the three sources. “One false move and you’ll either be crushed into infinity or burnt to a crisp.”

Shiro nods solemnly as he turns and strides up the stairs, right as Lance speaks with a suave tone, “ _ So _ , any thoughts on who’s gonna be joining you on this little mission?” He touches his chin with a charming grin, “I’m thinking things might get a little  _ hot _ , so you’re gonna want someone who can stay  _ cool _ .” He cocks an eyebrow at Shiro suggestively with a subtle gesture towards himself.

Shiro pauses in front of him as he glances around the room before he states, “You’re right.” He turns to Lance’s right, “Keith, you’re coming with me.”

Lance balks, looking over at Keith with an accusatory tone, “But Keith’s a hothead!” Keith meets Lance with a tired glare before Lance whirls around towards Shiro and getting in his personal space, “He’s probably gonna shoot first and ask questions later, and they’re not gonna be able to answer his questions because  _ they’ll be dead! _ ” 

Shiro looks at Lance with a set expression and a hard gaze that almost hurts to look at before he answers in a biting manner, pushing on Lance’s shoulders to put a larger distance between him and Shiro, “The Red Lion is the fastest and most agile,  _ and  _ it can withstand the heat from that sun. So  _ yes, _ it’ll be  _ Keith. _ ” With that Shiro twists his head toward the door, Keith moves like a shadow in step after him.

_ Fuck. No, no no, I don’t like this. I don’t like that at all. I can’t stay behind while they go in there, I’m going to fucking explode if I sit here and wait two hours for them to come back, this feeling in my gut won’t go away, it’s just getting worse. I’m not gonna let them go in without backup. I have to listen to my gut.  _

I start speaking before I can really think about what I’m saying, “The message said no more than three.” I turn back towards Keith and Shiro, setting my jaw as I state with a tone of iron, “Take me with you.” 

Shiro immediately shakes his head, frowning at me with his arms crossed, “You need to rest after the quintessence transmutation you did yesterday.”

I growl under my breath as I take a step forward, “I told you I feel fine!” Shiro gives me a look, a tired one that says more than any words could, so I press on with some logic, “Besides, you should take the max amount they’ll let you take, just in case you need backup!” 

Shiro narrows his eyes at me, unmoving and resolute. I swallow, and against my better judgement my voice grows a little raw, “Listen… I’m gonna lose my mind if I stay behind while you two go in there alone. I have a bad feeling about this.” 

Shiro frowns, unconvinced, when Allura’s voice suddenly speaks from behind me, “Will has a point. You should take as many people as they’ll let you just in case something goes wrong.”

“Yeah, again, I’m with Allura.” Hunk suddenly says, I look over to him as he stands beside me with his hands held out towards me like he’s presenting a science fair project, “Every time Will’s said he has a bad feeling in the past, something bad has happened, and as much as I  _ hate that that’s a thing… _ ” He grumbles at the end, glancing at me for a bare second before he looks at Shiro sheepishly, “It might be a good idea to listen. Or, at least let him come with you, you know?” He glances over at me with a shy expression, tapping his fingertips together. Immediately my chest surges with sudden warmth.  _ Thank you so. Fucking. MUCH for backing me up here.  _

_ I’m going to have to thank Hunk later for this with a big hug and somehow get him a space donut or whatever since he’s so set on it.  _

I look at Shiro with a challenging expression, silently pleading  _ please for the love of God listen to me.  _ Shiro closes his eyes for a moment like he’s deep in thought, after a few seconds they open again, they’re a dark stormy gray as he gestures his head towards the door, “Fine. Suit up.” 

I let out the most relieved breath I think I ever have as we move towards our elevators to take us down to our lions’ hangers.  _ Thank you Allura, thank you Hunk, oh my GOD I’m so glad that worked. I think I would literally die bouncing off the walls of the bridge if I had to sit there for two hours wondering what the fuck is going on down there, not with this shaky, horrible, worming feeling getting worse by the second. It feels like we’re walking into a trap, and I can’t explain how or why, but I’m so fucking glad I can at least be there to help if something were to happen. I don’t know what could, but my gut hasn’t been wrong yet. Like Hunk said… I can’t say I’m a fan of that being a thing either. But maybe this will prove it wrong. Either way, I see this as an absolute win. _

I can’t stop shaking, not out of anxiety or fear but straight up nerves as I get my suit on, and because of this it takes me longer than usual. Once I’m ready, with a heavy chest, I summon my bayard from my suit and set it down on the bench within my armory.  _ I wish I could have my bayard, at least it’s shield, but no weapons is no weapons. I’m not gonna try and sneak it in and jeopardize the others just for my comfort. _

I let out a sigh as I make my way to Keith’s hanger. 

The Red Lion is crouched with its jaw parted, the doorway at the back of its throat wide open. I head up the stairs with soft steps, but just before I enter the pilot’s chamber I hear Shiro speaking to Keith. 

“Keith, is everything okay?” I can’t help but freeze in the stairwell just outside of line of sight. Something tells me not to move, so I don’t, I wait as the silence between them only lasts a beat. 

“I’m fine.” Despite how obviously not true that statement is, Keith surprisingly sounds authentic and genuine.

Shiro doesn’t sound convinced, “You kind of blew up at everybody back there.” Keith doesn’t answer, so Shiro continues with a matter of fact tone, “You’ll have to control your emotions if you’re going to lead this group someday.”

I blink, staring at the wall in shock as Keith makes a noise that matches how I feel, “...  _ Lead _ the group?”

“When we were stranded, I told you, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to lead Voltron.”

_ … Does Shiro think that something is gonna happen to him? Why is he already setting up a line of succession? And why is Keith… Why is this a conversation that they’ve had before?  _

Mentally reeling I hear Keith speaking in a soft tone, full of disbelief, “I thought you were just delirious with pain, why would you make me the leader?”

“Because I know what you’re capable of.” Shiro states in a gentle manner, full of feeling, before he adds, “ _ If  _ you can learn some self-discipline.”

Keith speaks quickly, abruptly changing his tone, “Why are we even talking about this? Nothing is gonna happen to you.” 

“It’s just in case.” Shiro amends, “I need you to get focused. When you and Allura ran off, it put us all in jeopardy. If you’re going to be a leader, you’ve got to get your head on straight.”

Keith is silent for a time before he murmurs quietly, so quietly I almost don’t hear him, “... I’m sorry. I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”

“I know.” Shiro answers in kind, “We all have.” There’s silence for several seconds. 

_ I should not have been eavesdropping on that conversation. Fuck. What am I doing? I shouldn’t have been listening! Now is the time for me to make my entrance before I hear more things I’m not supposed to.  _ I retreat back a few steps silently before I head up the stairs again with louder footsteps so my presence is known, like I wasn’t just listening in the shadow of the stairwell. I hurry into the room with my helmet under my arm, panting a little to signify I was running as I pull it on, “Sorry, I’m here! Let’s head out.” 

Shiro turns to look back at me where he stands behind the pilot’s seat, moving to make room for me hold onto the back with no sign on his face of anything amiss or that he was just talking to Keith about him being his replacement. I grab onto the back of the seat, looking out at the glass beyond as Keith remotely opens the hanger door and guides the Red Lion into empty space. 

_ Jesus Christ. Shiro really made a backup plan if something happened to him, and he thinks Keith could be the leader. The Black Paladin, even. That seems so out of left field, but there’s got to be some level of merit to it, no one knows Keith better than Shiro. There’s a lot to unpack there, but I don’t have nearly enough information to draw any conclusions, so it’s probably best if I just forget about it. I shouldn’t have been listening in anyway, that was a private conversation, but goddamnit, I am nosy as fuck. I had no business doing that, that’s gonna bite me in the ass someday. Fucking hell.  _

I settle my breathing and close my eyes briefly, wiping my thoughts clean save for waiting in expectation for what lies beyond. When I open them again the massive blue star comes into view, and suddenly the situation grows frighteningly more real than it was back at the Castle.  _ It’s so… so big.  _ Even approaching in the Red Lion I feel so, so,  _ so  _ small.  _ Those are black holes, things I didn’t actually thing were a real thing, and a fucking sun between them. A huge, blue sun. Also didn’t know that that’s a thing. Oh God, maybe Shiro was right, maybe I should’ve stayed back at the Castle.  _

Keith pushes a button on the front panel and a guidance system pops up on the front screen, showing the curved trail through the azure inferno to get us to the bubbled base between the star and the black holes, it looks like a mere pebble in comparison to the massive celestial bodies between them. Keith pushes the Red Lion down the path, after a brief moment we dive into the electric blue flames. A message appears to the right, scarlet lettering warning of the heat from the fires before it disappears again with a wave of Keith’s hand. He has his hands rested on the controls, his fingers are clenched tightly but his guiding movements are steady and smooth.  _ He’s in his element. If anyone can fly us through two black holes and a fucking sun, it’s Keith. _

“This is insane, but…” I murmur, looking out beyond at the spiraling blues, licking flames that jump through space and swarm the gaping maw as big as the sun itself out of our peripheral, “It’s kind of beautiful. What are the odds that this happened, you know? Two black holes opening on either side of a sun. I didn’t even know suns could be blue! They don’t teach you that in high school physics.”

Shiro nods, rumbling in a deep, distracted tone, “You can tell how hot a star’s surface is depending on its color. This one I’d guess is a star type B or O, based on its size.” 

I chew my lip, furrowing my eyebrows as we delve deeper into the blue flames, “So, is this star in particular is one of the hotter stars?” Shiro nods, and I find myself letting out a soft breath, “... Of course it is. The more you know, I guess.” I grow quiet when a sudden jolt shakes the cabin, I look up to see that we have fallen a bit off of the trail that Keith had been following. 

“We’re getting drawn in by one of the black holes.” Keith growls, pushing on the controls to realign ourselves back on course as the cabin suddenly trembles again. I hang onto the seat and reach out, latching onto Shiro to keep his balance as he hitches beside me. Out of the glass I can see debris flying by, rocks, metal, crushed and burning all at once; now that we’re off the smoother trail, getting tugged backwards into the black hole, they’re headed straight for us. 

“Get us out of here!’ Shiro cries as Keith presses against the controls, flipping switches under the dashboard. I feel the thrusters in the Red Lion roar like thunder right beneath our feet, pushing us forward away from the pull. 

A large boulder comes flying from the side and I find myself shouting, “On the right!” Keith twists us around, I hang on as tight as I can as the Red Lion rises through the blue fire, landing on top of the boulder and pushing off of it for momentum that sends us hurtling through space and then back onto track. It smooths the shake of the cabin until it’s just a bare tremor, right as the base comes into view. The near heart attack I was just having stammers and dies in relief as I grip the back of Keith’s seat, resting my forehead on the surface as I sigh with the respite.

“Nice job.” Shiro murmurs with a relieved breath, “That was close.” 

Keith lets out a short breath as he reaffirms his grip on the controls, guiding the Red Lion towards the base. Up close I can see it’s about the size of the main body of the Castle, jagged edges of rock jutting out and shaped like a curved, rugged dagger. As we approach, the see-through bubble stretches towards us, pushing around us like we’re pressed against a sheet until it fully encompasses the Red Lion, pulling her inside and towards the base without the actual bubble breaking. A red holographic message pops up to the right, Keith reads it off in a matter of fact tone, “This shield’s an atmospheric regulator. It’s deflecting the heat enough so it’s safe to go outside.” 

“Clever.” I mutter under my breath. Keith brings us in towards a flat surface on one end of the base before a rising mountain of rock that’s big enough for the Red Lion to land on comfortably, the roaring blues of the inferno swirl around the base like we’re within a glass blown bauble. Once the Red Lion is stationary Keith rises from his seat and Shiro heads towards the stairwell to head down, I follow after quickly, engaging the oxygen of my helmet and dropping the visor. I take a deep, calming breath to settle the anxiety that feels like lightning coursing under my fingertips.  _ I can’t tell if I’m just straight up nervous now, or if this is that same worming feeling I was getting earlier. _

We walk out of the maw of the Red Lion and onto the surface of the rock, and immediately I can feel the heat of the sun around us, even from within the atmosphere regulating bubble, it’s like we’re standing in a preheating oven. Gravity is iffy, it feels a bit like I’m being pulled from all directions as I stand there, it’s almost zero gravity but not really, it’s more like if gravity wasn’t just pushing me downwards, but rather to the sides, up,  _ and  _ down. The roar of the fires is loud, a constant white noise that blocks almost all sound except for my breathing within my helmet. I stand as still as I can, only walking in the path that Shiro takes once we’re on the base’s surface, but I don’t see any sort of doorway, or any signs of life for that matter.  _ Follow Shiro, he knows how to space walk, he’ll know how to not get thrown into oblivion with one false move. I should really find some way to practice moving in space. Oh fuck me I hope it isn’t like this inside the base. _ The Red Lion rights itself and erects its barrier once we’re a distance away, a glowing scarlet ball in the midst of seas of azure flame, the golden light dies in its eyes. 

“There’s nothing here.” Keith says with a confused tone, I turn and follow after the pair as they stride forward towards the thin, jagged mountain before us. “This place just looks like a plain asteroid.” 

As if on queue a sudden burst of air pushes from the ground several yards away from us at the base of the rise. A lilac metal platform rises from the ground as two slabs of rock slide away, revealing three, masked figures. The masks are just like the one Ulaz wore when he infiltrated the Castle, purple lights where their eyes would be and striped light by their mouths, almost like a muzzle in the mask. They have purple tunics that wrap on their shoulders beneath a black breastplate, purple lights striped like their masks across their chest in a curved manner, almost like a broken ‘x’. Each masked figure is incredibly different in build, one is massive, at least a full head taller than Shiro, and bulky, I can see muscle beneath his black suit and the violet tunic as clear as day. He has a tail that’s as thick around as both of my arms put together, it curls and moves behind him like a dragon’s. The other two Galra are smaller than this one, taller than me because  _ of course they are _ , one is slighter than the other but with something jutting from beneath her black hood, like she has long, pointed ears that don’t fit under the material, her form is curvier and sleek, like a cat’s. What concerns me most is that each of them have sheathed, curved swords of black metal with violet, glowing stripes on the handle strapped to their back, just like Ulaz’s blade except the stripes on the three figures’ swords are different, each one unique to its owner.  _ Goddamnit I wish I had my bayard. I hate being unarmed with all three of them bearing swords. But this is supposed to be a meeting for us to gain allies. But why does it feel like we’re being turned over as hostages?  _

The three figures move aside, making room on their platform between them. Shiro glances over at Keith and I before he walks forward, joining them on the metal landing. Keith moves after him without hesitation but I falter briefly as I flicker my gaze between the sightless, violet light of the trio. Fear clambers its way into my throat but I force it down as tightly as I can manage before I step forward and join them.  _ We’re here for allies. I’m sure they’re just scary in appearance, but not actually. I’m sure they have a reason to be apprehensive. I’m sure that this is all for a purpose that isn’t nefarious. God, then why does my stomach feel like a thrice folded paper plate? _

The platform begins to move, gliding back down into the ground from hence it came. The rock slabs close over us, and as soon as it does I feel gravity almost restore itself, pulling only downward like normal. I can’t help but let out a small breath of relief at this, standing with more confidence as we glide downward. The walls of this elevator shaft are illuminated with stripes of bright neon purple light, it feels like we’re traveling down a sky scraper looking out over a city as we sink lower into the base, as low as the stone in my throat now sinks to my stomach. The bad feeling is only getting worse the farther down we go, I’m so full of apprehension that if it were electricity I’d be crackling and zapping the whole area around me like a broken transformer.

The elevator door opens and reveals a large forum, about twice as large as the Castle’s bridge. The walls and floors are a steely gray, the space illuminated by two large lights on opposing ends of the wall. There is a runway from the elevator to the far end of the room where there appears to be something like the training deck’s control room, a panel at the far end with a blacked out glass looking out beyond somewhere we cannot see. Lining the room like a queen’s guard are more of these masked Galra, standing with their arms behind their backs as still as statues. There has to be at least twenty of them, all with the same armor, same masks, same swords on their backs, although each individual Galra is varied in size and build. In the very center of the room, hovering in the air is a holographic projection of a violet rune, the rune I realize that was at the base of Ulaz’s blade and is on the hilt of the other Galras’ swords in the room.  _ Must be the symbol of the Blade, I guess. Wow, brilliant Will, you’re so fucking smart.  _ I swallow down my uneasiness as we disembark from the platform, striding forward to the far end of the room between the two lines of armed Galra on either side of us. Blades of Marmora I suppose they are, not just Galra. 

At the far end, standing just up a few stairs right in front of the holographic panel stands another masked Blade, but this one is different from the others. I feel confident that it’s a he based on the breadth of his shoulders, he has a thicker tunic resting on his shoulders that wraps at his waist and he bears no chestplate. His sword is not on his back either, but rather hanging from his hip from a thick black belt. I can see a coil of white around this Galra’s neck that looks either like a string of beads or braided hair, but I can’t tell even as we close the distance. 

We stop at the base of the stairs, the foreboding taste of the air is thick like paste on my tongue as I take a look around me. In our immediate vicinity the three Galra who escorted us are standing directly behind us with their hands at their sides, and in front of us, flanking their apparent leader, is one, two… eight more masked figures, all with swords.  _ They could overwhelm and kill us with ease if they wanted to, not even Shiro and his prosthetic could stop them. _ That’s a thought that ices my blood so fast that I’m worried if I were to sigh my breath would ghost like it would in winter, it takes all of my concentration not to tremble. 

The head Galra suddenly speaks in a deep voice much like Vader, “I am Kolivan, leader of the Blade of Marmora.” He states, his arms held behind his back in a militant fashion and he’s as still as a statue. 

Shiro speaks for us, looking up at him through his visor, “My name is Shiro, and this is Will and Keith.” He glances over at us with a gesture of his chin, “We are Paladins of Voltron.”

“I know who you are.” He answers, his voice rings ominously in the expansive space.

Shiro’s gaze flickers at each of the Galra around us, apparently getting a similar feeling that I am, as he fixes his eyes back on Kolivan, “Then you know we were sent by one of your own.”

Kolivan doesn’t move. I wouldn’t even be able to tell that he’s speaking if it weren’t for the sound coming from his mask, “Ulaz was a fool to divulge this location to you. He had a penchant for ignoring orders and following his impulses.” He pauses after a moment before he states in a steely tone, “That’s what got him killed.” 

Shiro immediately tenses, his lips pulled back in a snarl, “He gave his  _ life  _ to save us.” He takes a short pause as his words ring in the air before he continues in a less accusatory, more commanding tone, “What he did brought us here today, and Voltron is ready to assist you. Are we welcome here, or not?”  _ Good question.  _

Kolivan doesn’t move, hasn’t moved a single muscle this whole time, as he speaks again, “You were told to come unarmed.” 

Shiro glances over at me with a raised eyebrow and I sternly shake my head,  _ no, I left my bayard back in my hanger.  _

Keith takes a step forward with a set jaw, “You also told us to identify ourselves. The lions are about as close as we come to an ID.” 

_ Oh, he must be referring to the Red Lion then. What, were we supposed to take a pod here? Through THAT? _

Shiro turns back to Kolivan, his tone morphing to charismatic, “If anything happens, believe me, you’ll be happy to have the Red Lion on your side.” 

“I imagine we would.” Kolivan answers in a flat manner, “But I was not referring to your  _ beast. _ ” 

I hear footsteps behind me and I whirl around right as the large one who led us in, the one with the tail, suddenly grabs Keith by the arm and knocks him over, pinning him to the floor with his hand behind his back. 

“Keith!” Shiro gasps immediately in junction with one another we moves towards him but the other two Blades move in our way, blocking us with their bodies, I stop myself from barrelling over the catlike Blade at the last second. I glare at them straight in the mask before I shift and watch Keith with wide, worried eyes.

The larger Blade flicks his tail as his large foot rests on Keith’s leg, effectively immobilizing him as he pulls something out of Keith’s boot. 

_ Fuck. He brought his knife. Fucking damnit, Keith brought his fucking knife. Goddamnit Keith, why did you bring your stupid knife?! _

The Blade, using one hand, rips off the cloth binding around its hilt and then holds it upright, showing it to Kolivan and inadvertently to us, “He has one of our blades!” 

I stare in surprise as I see the violet, glowing rune etched onto the knife’s hilt. A rune that looks exactly like the rune hovering over our heads, exactly like the rune I can see at the base of the Galra’s sword.

The large Galra snarls like a wolf, looking down at Keith beneath his knee, “ _ Who  _ did you  _ steal  _ this from?” His voice is full of barely controlled rage, one that makes my heart stammer in my chest in absolute terror of seeing him poised over Keith with a knife at hand. 

“I didn’t!” Keith cries, planting his unpinned hand on the ground to look up at the Galra over him with furrowed eyebrows and a desperate edge to his voice, “I’ve had it all my life!”

The Galra’s tail swathes across the ground with a low growl as he hisses,  _ “Lies!”  _

_ What the hell is going on? Why would Keith’s knife have that rune on it? Where could he have even gotten it? _

I look over at Shiro with wide eyes in desperate search for answers only to see him turning to look at me in the same moment, his expression is completely open in absolute confusion.  _ Fuck, come on, he’s got to know, right? He knows Keith better than anyone! _

“Can you corroborate your friend’s statement?” Kolivan suddenly asks, and when I look up I see him fully facing Shiro and I, “Does this blade truly belong to him?”

Shiro looks over at me and I at him,  _ he’s had it for as long as I’ve known him but that’s just been two and a half weeks, Shiro’s known him for years, he has to know. Right? _

Shiro stammers, his eyebrows drawn together as his voice drops, “I-I don’t know.”

Keith shifts to look over in our direction, his breath is fogging up the glass of his visor as he pleas in a far more desperate tone than before, “Shiro, you know me, I  _ promise  _ you I didn’t steal it.” He glances up at me and then at the other Galra gathered in the vicinity, “I’ve had this knife for as long as I can remember!”

The Galra on Keith’s back presses a massive hand on the back of his suit, snarling ferally, “We can’t trust them.”

“I’m telling the truth!” Keith takes a breath, raising his head as much as he can in his position until he’s looking up at Kolivan, “I saw Ulaz had a knife like this, tell me what it means!”

“Our organization is based on secrecy and trust.” Kolivan states in the same cool tone he’s had since we got here, completely unchanging as his head moves downward, I can feel his gaze fixing on us squarely, “You three should leave. Now.” 

The large Galra pinning Keith down rises quickly, which fills me with relief, getting out of the way so Keith can get up. Keith holds his once pinned arm close to his chest with a stunned look as the other Blades move out of our way, Shiro and I immediately go to him, I step towards him as quick as I can until I’m standing at his shoulder with a gaze cast over my shoulder at the larger Galra. He still has Keith’s knife in his hand. 

_ What the fuck is happening? How did this devolve so fast? _

I look at the Blade, look at the knife, and then look up at Kolivan with an indignant expression, “You’re seriously willing to throw us out, throw  _ Voltron _ out, because of a  _ knife? _ ”

“We came here to form an alliance.” Shiro states with a firm set in his brow, looking at Kolivan with a hard stare, “But obviously we are not welcome.” He looks back to Keith and I, his expression is completely unreadable as he turns towards the elevator from hence we came, “Come on, we’re leaving.”

I turn to follow Shiro with a shaken grasp of ice around my lungs when Keith shakes his head, and with a resolute turn he faces Kolivan, “Not without some answers.” 

Shiro stops and looks back at him as Keith takes a step forward, his voice is the closest thing I’ve heard to desperate and demanding that I’ve ever heard, “Somehow one of your knives ended up with me on Earth. Tell me how!” 

A memory pulls itself from my subconscious as I watch Keith’s dark expression, a memory that I didn’t realize I had.  _ ‘What’s that weapon you carry?’  _

_ He’s known his knife is linked to the Blade of Marmora since we met Ulaz. He asked Coran about this before. He’s been trying to figure this out the whole time, ever since he saw the sword Ulaz carried and recognized the sigil upon it to be the same as the one on his knife. I believe him when he says he didn’t steal it, from who could he have stolen it from since the Galra never made it to Earth?  _

_ Or did they?  _

_ Oh I do not like that train of thought.  _

“Your friend is right.” Kolivan states with a sharp edge to his voice, “It is time for you to go.”

Keith takes a step forward, growling with rising anger, “ _ Where  _ did it  _ come from? _ ” 

“Keith-” I start but when he looks over at me my voice dies in my throat. His gaze is a steel blue as it flickers across my features, and after a brief moment his voice softens with his gaze as he states, “... I have to know.” He peers at me for a long moment with a tired expression and I right back at him.  _ I’ve always wondered about Keith’s past. Now, it looks like he has some questions, too.  _

_ I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get in the way of that.  _ The objection I had only just begun to raise kicks itself out into the street; I give him a slight nod of understanding.  _ You don’t need my permission to do anything; I’ll stand with you regardless.  _

“You seek knowledge?” Keith whips around at Kolivan as he suddenly speaks with a tone I can’t quite glean meaning from, “There is only one way to attain knowledge here.” 

“How? I’ll do it!” Keith immediately takes a step towards Kolivan without a second’s hesitation, but something about the way Kolivan said it,  _ only one way,  _ I tense up so violently as the worming feeling in my gut intensifies that I hear myself gasp.

“The Trials of Marmora is how we test our resolve. It is how we gain enlightenment, and it is how you will learn what you want to know.” Kolivan states, his masked expression revealing no hint to his intentions, “Should you survive, you may keep the blade, and its secrets will be revealed to you.” 

_ “Survive?!”  _ Shiro mentally grasps what’s happening far faster than I do, he grabs Keith’s shoulder and tugs him back to look at him with dead seriousness, “Keith, this is crazy, if they’re not going to help us, let’s get out of here.”  _ Should you survive.  _

“I’m not going anywhere.” Keith looks at Shiro with stoic resolve, turning back to face Kolivan with a deadset expression, “I have to do this.”  _ Should you survive. Hell fucking no. _

My throat seizes and something inside me breaks, I take a step forward and snap, “No, you don’t! There is  _ always  _ a choice.” I whirl towards Kolivan, pointing a finger at his expressionless mask accusingly, “Why can’t you just tell him? Why make him jump through some  _ stupid _ hoops when all he wants to know is-!” 

Keith barks, “Will,  _ stop it! _ ” Immediately my mouth clams shut. I look back at him with ice constricting my throat as he gives me a hard look, his jaw is set and his mouth is in a hard line, “I’ve made up my mind. Don’t try and stop me.” Keith’s voice is full of fiery determination, one that just fans the fear boiling in my chest. 

I set my jaw after I swallow on nothing but the dryness in my mouth. “... I’m not. I won’t.”  _ I’m just scared for you.  _

_ What kind of trial helps him ‘gain enlightenment’ while also has the potential to kill him? This sounds like something straight out of one of my favorite fantasy novels. _

“Antok,” Kolivan calls, “Give the boy the blade.” 

The large Galra behind Keith swishes his tail along the smooth gray floors as Keith turns to him, holding out the knife in his hand that’s practically a letter opener in his grasp. As Keith reaches out and takes the blade, the Galra speaks in a dark, menacing voice, “We will meet again.” 

“Can’t wait.” Keith grumbles in response as he wields the knife in a white knuckled grip.

“These trials result in either one of two things,” Kolivan speaks after a moment, drawing our attention to him, “Knowledge, or death.” 

The awful chill of the silence hangs in the air as Kolivan suddenly moves, his hands dropping to his sides as he turns to one of the many Blades gathered in the area, “Take him down.” 

The Galra nods, and with two Galra at their backs they move to walk behind Keith and usher him towards a hidden doorway on the side of the room. My pulse stutters violently out of time as the door opens and without a second thought I take a step towards them and call out, “Keith!”

The large Galra with the tail, the one Kolivan called Antok, steps in front of me so I don’t progress any farther, but much to my shock the Blades guiding Keith stop; he turns around to look at me with a hard light in his eyes.  _ He’s probably expecting me to try and talk him out of it one last time. There’s no way that anything I can say will get him to stop, but…  _

I frown, my shaking hands clenched into a fist as I huff, “Don’t you dare die on me, alright?”

Keith doesn’t answer, but the razor edge of his expression blunts like it was driven against sandpaper. He turns back around, the Blades guide him out of the room and the door closes behind him. 

I let out a shaky breath before looking up at Antok’s expressionless mask; he stands a full head and shoulders taller than me, I only come up to about his mid chest, and after a moment to glare I set my jaw.  _ How the fuck did this just happen? We came here for an alliance and now Keith is walking off somewhere to do some trial to find out why he has a Galra knife, a trial that might kill him. I don’t care that I don’t have my bayard, if something happens to him…  _

I turn my back on this Antok and look over at Shiro where he stands in the center with a wide eyed stunned expression when all of a sudden the other Blades in the room begin to move. Many duck out of the room entirely down doorways scattered through the walls, but a few, flanking Kolivan as he rounds about the front, take up position around us in a protective circle, the three who brought us inside and two more that flank Kolivan on either side.  _ Only five. Jesus Christ.  _

Shiro grabs my shoulder as the glass behind the panel before us flickers, revealing a massive holographic screen with a glass looking down below at what looks like a training deck, much like the one we have at the Castle. On either side of the glass are holograms showing a video feed of two rooms, one is a square room with a series of elevators at the end of it, and the other is curved hallway, which I can see Keith and the three Blades at his back walking down right now.

“What’s this trial composed of?” Shiro demands, his hand dropping from my shoulder as he instead walks up the stairs to where Kolivan stands at the panel. It activates into a violet holographic keyboard with a wave of his massive clawed hand, pressing a button that sends a message I cannot read up on the screen, I suppose because the lettering must be Galra or something. 

“The trial of Marmora is a test of will, in  _ all _ of its facets.” Kolivan answers simply, otherwise not deigning a response as he continues, “You may observe, but you are forbidden from interfering without putting your friend’s life at risk.”

I grit my teeth and walk up the stairs to stand with Shiro, regarding him with a set gaze I growl softly, “Is that a threat?” Kolivan doesn’t answer me, so instead I look at Shiro with a set expression, “I really don’t like this, Shiro. How long do we have until the doorway out of here closes?”

Shiro looks down at the computer in his suit before he glances over at me, “Still another hour.” He sighs after a moment, hanging his head before he puts his hand on my shoulder and fixes me with a firm look, “We’re all gonna get out of this, alright? We’ve just got to have some faith.” 

I meet his gaze, setting my jaw before I let out a pent up sigh, “It’s not us I’m worried about.”

I hear a voice speaking from a com by the screen, pulling my attention to what’s going on on the screen, “Take off your armor.” 

The image of Keith scowls angrily as he pulls his arm plates off, tossing them on the floor of the hallway before he pulls his chest plate and the rest of the armor after, leaving him in his flight suit. One of the Galra produce a chestplate exactly like the one all the rest of the Galra wear, latching it onto his person when another Galra comes up from behind him with what looks like a high tech staple gun, something violet glowing on its tip. They stab Keith in the back of the neck, leaving a small, glowing, purple knob outside his suit as Keith winces, he turns and looks back at them with an accusing glare. 

“What’re you doing?” He demands, I can hear his voice through a com system in the panel beside us. 

“It is a part of your trial.” One of the Galra answer helpfully, grabbing Keith’s face to keep him facing forward as the Galra behind him latches two more violet, glowing knobs on the back of his neck, leading down his spine. He winces with each stab, but he doesn’t fight it.

“What are they doing?” I hiss, leaning forward towards the glass before glaring to the side at Kolivan’s masked face. 

“It is a part of his-”

“I fucking  _ get that, _ ” I growl, my hands bunching into fists, “But to what purpose does it serve? What are those things?”

“They contain monitors. They are put in place for us to keep track of his vital signs from here.” Kolivan answers, gesturing to a small segment in the right corner of the panel. I can see Keith’s heart-rate upon it now, pulsing at a quick rise and fall just like they have on the holograms in hospitals.

“And what’s this supposed to be?” Shiro asks as he points out another part of the segment I was just examining, a part that has three, full, purple bars at the bottom like for when something has finished downloading.

“Doses of a serum. It is for a later part of the trial. If he makes it there.” Kolivan answers after a moment’s pause, glancing over at us. I can feel his gaze even through the sightless lights of his mask and the helplessness that seizes my veins makes me  _ really  _ want to sucker punch those lights out. 

I look back up at the holographic video feed to see Keith being directed through a doorway, and when I look down I see him walking onto the training deck through the glass below, my heart climbs in my throat.  _ I feel like I’m in the stands of an amphitheatre about to watch a gladiator match.  _ He turns around in circles with his knife at hand, searching for whatever lies beyond, right as a hole opens in the floor a couple yards away from him. 

He stops and watches as a Galra, slight of build and just about roughly Keith’s size, rises from the floor, they stand resolutely with their hands at their sides. Keith readies himself and holds up his knife defensively, and I can’t help but shake because of how fucking  _ small  _ it looks in his hands, it’s not a small knife but it seems as such compared to the sword at the Blade’s back. 

The Blade below unsheathes their sword, I can hear their voice through the com system as they speak, “Surrender the blade.” They hold their sword out in front of them, readying themselves in a battle stance. 

Keith sets his jaw, I can see him raking the Blade’s form for weaknesses for a split second before he charges. He crashes his knife against the sword’s surface to knock it aside as he rakes it back downward, catching the armor of the Blade’s wrists before he twists to roundhouse kick them in the chest. They dodge, taking a quick step back as Keith attacks again, slashing his knife at the Blade’s face just as they duck out of the way, Keith’s hand slides down the hilt of the knife for him to rake the blade back down,  _ he knows how to fight with it _ . The Galra blocks the blade with ease and lifts their wrist as Keith tries to move for a punch, blocking the attack when the Blade suddenly lifts their arm that blocked Keith’s punch and elbows him straight to the face. As he’s reeling they use the flat of their hand to strike his chest, sending him stumbling back several feet. I wince, gritting my teeth as Keith quickly re-establishes his stance and the Blade moves on the offensive, dashing forward and raining blows upon him with slashes of his sword. Keith blocks them with the hilt of his knife, taking retreating steps back when the Blade swipes at his chest, he dodges backward as the Blade suddenly twists in the air and kicks him in the middle of his breastplate. Keith stumbles, the Blade swings its blade and Keith’s cry of pain rips through the speakers and through my ears as he suddenly stumbles back, I can see a rip in his suit where his shoulder meets his neck with blood already staining the black of the suit. My hands cover my mouth as my heart seizes in my chest, fear pulsing through my veins as Keith rights himself with a hand covering the wound, his knife held out in front of him and for a moment the two stare each other down without a move to attack. 

“Come on, Keith!” I start when I hear Shiro whispering under his breath just next to me, I don’t risk glancing in his direction as I watch the deck below with the gaze of a hawk. Keith lashes out in a swipe but the Blade is ready, they grab his wrist and suddenly twist his arm, pinning it behind his back with a sudden yank until they’ve got him in a lock on his knees with his back to the Blade, their sword rests right next to Keith’s neck and everything freezes. All I’m aware of is that sword, and the violent shaking of my hands.  _ Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. Don’t- _

The Galra’s voice comes over the com system in the panel, “Surrender the blade and the pain will cease.”

I can hear Keith’s heavy breathing, I watch the Galra’s blade press against Keith’s throat. “I won’t quit.” He states breathlessly, even despite the defenseless position I can see the grit of his jaw and the ferocity gleaming in his eyes.  _ Please don’t let those be your last words.  _

_ I will rip this entire base apart of they kill you.  _

“Then the pain continues.” The Blade states, and much to my shock they let Keith go. He drops to the floor with a wince, now that I’m looking I can see blood droplets collecting on the floor below him from the cut on his shoulder and it makes my stomach clench so violently that I can feel myself starting to shake. Keith stumbles to his feet as the Blade takes a step back, their sword dropping to their side as they stare at the far wall. “You are not meant to go through that door.” They say, unmoving like a soldierly statue. 

Keith looks beyond, in our direction, where I can only assume there is a door below where we stand. He immediately takes off at a run after sparing the stony Blade only a glance and enters the doorway, out of our sight. 

Up on the holographic video feed I can see him running through the hallway he was just in, and that’s when I realize it’s a a direct feedback loop. The hallway begins in this doorway he just ran through, and when he’s spit back out again it’s in the exact same doorway he entered when this started, the doorway that he initially came in through is closed without even a seam to tell where it once was. As soon as Keith is gone from the deck the Galra stands on a platform that sinks into the floor, and after a few seconds the metal slides overtop the hole and the training deck is completely clear, at least until several seconds later Keith bursts through the far doorway again, his knife at the ready. 

Two holes open in the floor before him. This time two Blades rise up with it, still as sculptures until the platform stops moving, sealing the floor tight once again. When they step off the platforms sink back down into the ground, a metal lid slowly sliding forward to cover where the platform once was.  _ No way they’re gonna sick two of them on him. Right? _

They attack. Keith steadies himself with his knife raised as one of them charges forward, slashing at him twice consecutively. Keith blocks them with his knife right as the second Blade rolls to the side, flanking him with a sweeping strike at his head. He dodges, ducking just in time as the other Blade pursues, cutting downward right as Keith raises his knife in defense, he’s unsteady as they slice again, but this time when Keith blocks the blow the Blade rises and round house kicks him in the head, even though Keith protects himself with his arm the momentum still sends him sprawling backwards. I grit my teeth and rest my clenched fist against the glass right as Shiro growls from behind me, “This isn’t a fair fight!”

“Nor is taking on Zarkon’s Galra Empire, but that is the fight we face.” Kolivan states resolutely, I twist to glare at him to see his arms behind his back as he stares at the glass beyond with faceless eyes.  _ What is this supposed to be? A test, then, to see if we are actually committed to fighting Zarkon? What is this supposed to prove to him, that Keith won’t quit? He won’t. Kolivan could throw five Blades at Keith to beat him to a pulp and he’d get up and ask for more, that I’m sure of. What I’m not sure of is if that’s even the point. But if it isn’t, what is?  _

I’m drawn back from the rage of my thoughts right as I hear Keith let out a noise of pain, I twist to see him fall to his knees after one of the Blades kneed him in the stomach. He kneels unmoving, panting, as the two Galra stop their attacks. One rests their blade beneath his chin, their voice comes over the com, “Surrender the blade, and the pain will cease.”

“No!” Keith barks back with bared teeth, his hands braced on the floor in front of him with the knife clenched in a fist like he’s ready to get right back on his feet once his breath has returned. I can see blood on his lip.

The two Galra let their blades fall to their sides, and one of them speaks as they wordlessly step aside, “You are not meant to go through that door.”

Keith climbs to his feet with a set jaw, pushing himself off the ground as he bounds for the doorway again, running out of sight. The two Galra step onto their platforms and retreat back into the ground, seconds later Keith’s spit right back out in the training arena all over again. 

I swallow on nothing but fear when three holes in the floor open, three more Blades rising upward like spectres of death to rest on the training platform. 

_ No. This isn’t right. What’s the purpose of this? What’s he supposed to be learning from this, how is this supposed to show him where his knife came from?  _

Keith isn’t phased; he evaluates the three, his knife held tight in his hand, before he races towards the closest one and attacks with a wild cry. They immediately kick him square in the chest, robbing him of all of his momentum and sending him backwards, I can hear him wheezing as the breath’s knocked out of him. One of the other three race forward and slash at him with their sword, Keith blocks it with his knife as the third flanks him, slicing him in the side when his back is turned. I hear him cry out and stumble away from the blow but the third one is ready, they grab his arm and supplex him to the floor with a hand on the back of his neck, it sends immediate sparks of red heat through my blood stream and into my fingertips as I stare at the deck below.

_ This is agony. This is hell, I must’ve died and gone to hell, there is no worse punishment than watching Keith getting pummelled into the dust and being unable to do anything about it.  _ I see nothing but his blood on the floor and I feel nothing but seething rage. I’m shaking, whether from fury, helplessness, or fear, I can’t tell which from which, “What the hell is this supposed to prove?” I ask no one, watching in horror as the Galra’s sword graces the back of Keith’s neck. 

“Surrender the blade and the pain will cease.” They state. 

Keith wheezes, his grip on the knife tightening where he lies on the floor,  _ “Never.”  _

“Then the pain continues.” The Galra step aside, all of their swords resting idle in their hands as the same one speaks again, “You are not meant to go through that door.”

Keith winces as he rises again, but this time he doesn’t run towards the door, he tries to but he ends up limping a bit, catching his breath until he’s spit back out onto the empty deck. There’s more of his blood on the floor, enough that it’s easily spotted from up here. 

_ I can’t let this continue. I can’t fucking sit by and watch them beat the shit out of him like this.  _

“Stop it!” I shout, whirling around towards Kolivan’s unmoving, stupidly  _ masked face _ , “Where is the honor in this? What the fuck are you trying to make him  _ prove?! _ ” 

Kolivan doesn’t even look in my direction, and that stokes my ire  _ far  _ more. I snarl and step forward, “You Galra are sick and  _ twisted  _ if you think this trial by combat bullshit is supposed to be some form of enlightenment, what the  _ fuck  _ is  _ wrong  _ with  _ you disgusting _ -”

“Will-” Shiro grabs my shoulder and despite my better judgement I shrug him off, but before I can do or say anything else I hear a pained cry from the holographic panel. I whirl back around to the glass to watch four,  _ four Galra Blades of Marmora _ attacking Keith. I can’t hardly see him save for a swipe here or a jab there as he desperately tries to defend himself but with horror I can see the gray floor is slick with more blood.  _ No. I can’t fucking watch this anymore.  _

I don’t think, I just act. I smash my fist against the glass with all the force I can manage and much to my shock it cracks, but I don’t get a chance to do anything else about it as a pair of hands grab me from behind and pull me away from it. “Stop it!” I scream, kicking and twisting about with all of my might against the two Galra, the Galra who came with Antok outside, holding my arms in tight grips, “Put me down you  _ fucking piss off, piece of shit- _ !”

“Control yourself, or you’ll be forced into confinement.” Kolivan states with as much emotion as if he just told me that they were out of cheese at the salad bar. I’m about to kick and scream and fight all the harder until I saw Shiro’s expression, wide eyed worried beyond belief as he flickers his gaze from me to the glass and then back to me. 

_ I’m not the only one here. I’m not the only one feeling trapped.  _

_ I can’t stand watching this happen, but I would literally go insane if I was locked up somewhere and had no idea if he was dead or alive. I want to rip out the throats of every Galra in this room… but I can’t do that. At least here I can see for myself, here I can act if something were to happen, and at least here I’m with Shiro, and Shiro has me.  _

_ If I can’t get down to Keith, then I have to control myself so Shiro isn’t alone here.  _

I let out a shaky breath, forcing my limbs to go lax. The Galra holding me slowly loosen their grip, and after a moment I speak in a hard voice that barely sounds like mine, “I’m not gonna do anything, I’m done. Let me go.” 

To my surprise, they do. I roll my shoulders as I walk back toward Shiro at the front of the room and wordlessly I grab the back of his armor, holding onto him as tightly as I can physically manage.  _ We’re in this together. We just have to have faith.  _ He doesn’t look in my direction but he shifts closer to me to show he knows I’m here, he’s staring out the glass with a horrified expression.

I let out a shaky, terrified noise that I wish I had the presence of mind to stop when I look below. I can see splatters of scarlet blood, smeared in some places, across the grayed floor. Keith is on the far side holding his arm, his teeth are visibly bared and I can see the rips and gashes in his suit where the blades found flesh, I don’t see a part of his suit that isn’t tinged red in blood. I look down at his heart rate and I can see that at least it’s still going relatively strong but it’s fast, too fast.  _ He must barely be able to stand, the amount of blood on the floor, the amount of cuts I see he has… I count the two bad ones on his shoulder and his side below his ribs, another across his collar bones, two on his left arm, one on his right, that gash on his thigh looks painful- _

“How long does this go on?” Shiro demands, twisting to look at Kolivan under my grasp on his armor. I don’t want to let go, holding onto him is what’s keeping me from punching the glass again, I can see the crack I made, and some dark part of me is filled with minute satisfaction. 

“Sometimes the greatest challenge is knowing when to stop.” Kolivan answers, his gaze is unmoving from the glass down below at the upcoming fight, like Caesar with a mask for a laurel crown. 

Shiro hisses, turning more towards Kolivan with clenched fists, “He’ll  _ never  _ quit.”

Kolivan doesn’t answer for a long moment as I return my gaze down below, watching Keith pressing his hand against the wall to support himself as he watches six Blades rising from the floor to meet him, there’s blood smeared against the metal as he moves a hand to press against a fresh, deep wound in his arm.  _ God, that looks bad. How is he supposed to win here? _ Keith sets his jaw, I can see his resolve almost physically hardening as Kolivan speaks again, “One way or another, this will end. Knowledge or death.” 

I let out a noise of desperation, looking at Keith with a warbling voice, “But what knowledge can he possibly gain from this? How many times he can get punched and stabbed and still get up?”

Suddenly, Keith moves. I watch with shock as he flies forward and suddenly slings his knife across the room it hurtles end over end before it lodges in the half open gateway in the floor where one of the Blade just disembarked. Keith sprints forward as a Blade turns to attack him, Keith straight out punches them in the face, pushing past them and then as a second approaches he kicks them aside. A third gets in his way and Keith tackles them in the chest but he lost his momentum, the Galra easily grabs his shoulders and hurls him off aside. Keith hits the ground with a pained sound but it brings him to where his knife creaks against the metal hatch, I watch as he grabs his knife where it’s lodged in the metal and slides into the held opening it created. He falls down the hatch, the metal closing in over his head.

I watch the glass with wide eyes as the Blades collected on the training floor look at one another and then up at us, still as statues. “Keith!” Shiro whispers with raw emotion and fear in his voice, when I turn to look at him I see his eyes are wide and his entire frame is frozen. Kolivan beyond looks unchanged, he doesn’t even seem to be breathing. 

“Did he do it?” I ask, staring at Kolivan for a long time. He doesn’t reply so I repeat myself with a dangerous hiss, “Did he fucking do it or not?”

“He’s completed this part of the trial. But one more remains.” Kolivan answers, finally. I look up when I see movement and stare when I see the second holographic video feed flicker, the one full of elevators that hasn’t changed up until this moment. One of the elevator doors in the room opens and I see Keith stumble through. 

I can hear his voice over the com system as he speaks in a rugged, exhausted voice, “... Guess I really wasn’t supposed to go through that door.” 

_ What a fucking Keith thing to say, like he isn’t trailing blood where he walks, like he isn’t beaten and bruised, I can see he’s already getting a yellow splotch on his jaw from that punch, Oh God, he’s limping…  _ Suddenly Keith teeters, his feet dragging in the ground before he keels over and drops facedown to the ground. His knife is still grasped tightly in his hands. 

Kolivan suddenly reaches down to the panel and presses a button, and I watch as the corner part of the panel, the part showing Keith’s vitals, suddenly moves, specifically the three purple bars below his heart beat. They pulse before they begin to fade, one bar pushing down to nothing, second bar, third bar, until they’re gone. Keith’s pulse flutters, I stare at it with wide eyes as my heart hammers so violently in my chest it’s threatening to break my ribcage. When I look up at the hologram I can’t see anything different with Keith, he still lays still on the floor.

“What did you do?!” I bark, whirling towards Kolivan as the red hot anger reignites at the drop of a hat. 

“Injected the serum into his bloodstream.” Kolivan replies, but before I can question him further he taps his wrist and speaks into a violet dot that flashes on the metal of the armor, “Commence the second trial.” 

The image of the room Keith is within enlargens, covering the empty training deck so that it’s all that we can see. I see a shadow approaching Keith’s fallen form and immediately I tense, my hands clenching into taut fists until I see the figure approaching him. 

Shiro approaches Keith on the video feed, kneeling down beside him and offering Keith his hand, “Hey man, you did it.” He says with a congratulatory tone, smiling as Keith’s hand shakily rises and grasps his. 

I blink. Once. Twice. I turn and look at Shiro standing beside me, his eyes are wide in shock, then to look at the Shiro currently helping a bleeding Keith to his feet on the hologram.  _ What the fuck? It looks just like Shiro. That looks just like Shiro, it’s not a hologram, it doesn’t waver, it’s Shiro in the flesh and blood… But Shiro is standing right next to me. This can’t be real.  _

“Shiro?” My heart lurches hearing the incredulousness and the exhaustion in Keith’s voice over the com in the panel.  _ Keith- _

“Kolivan told me that you lasted longer than anyone else in those battles.” Shiro’s voice is full of pride as he holds Keith steady, grasping both of his forearms with a gentle expression before he lets his arms drop, “Now you don’t have to keep this up.” 

Keith blinks, he looks straight up delirious as he holds his bleeding arm, I can see the blood has soaked into his suit and clings wet to his gloves, “... What are you talking about?” He asks, I flinch when Keith takes a slight step like he’s about to fall forward again but by some miracle he stays upright.  _ No, it’s not a miracle. He’s Keith. Keith is a survivor. _

“Just give them the knife and let’s get out of here!” This faux Shiro says with a resolute expression and a warm gaze, a gaze that looks  _ just like Shiro’s.  _ I have to look over at the real Shiro standing next to me and grab onto the back of his armor again to remind myself,  _ this is the real Shiro.  _

_ But how the fuck are they mimicking him like that? _

The Shiro beside me, the real Shiro, breaks the silence, his voice is shocked and incredulous, “Is that a hologram?”

Kolivan answers as he holds his arms behind his back, “His suit has the ability to reflect a virtual mindscape, reflecting the greatest hopes and fears of those injected with the serum. And at this moment, your friend desperately wants to see you.” 

Shiro sets his brow as Keith’s voice draws our attention back to the screen, “I can’t give it to them, Shiro.” Keith’s tone is huskier, it grates like sandpaper rubbing together, like he screamed himself hoarse.

The faux Shiro’s brow sets firmly, “What is it with you and that thing?”

Keith takes a rasping breath, looking down at the knife in his palm as he speaks, “It’s the only connection I have to my past. It’s my chance to learn who I really am.” 

_ Does Keith think that this is real? _

The faux Shiro sets his jaw and furrows his eyebrows at Keith, “You know  _ exactly  _ who you are: a Paladin of Voltron. We’re all the family you need.” 

“Shiro…” Keith’s eyes close for a moment before he lifts his gaze, his expression has never been so pleading and his voice has never been so raw, “You’re like a brother to me… but I  _ have  _ to do this.” Keith hitches with a gasp, I jolt when he suddenly falls to his knees, his fist holding the knife the only thing holding him up as he hangs his head with desperate breaths, his other hand grasping a slash in his thigh that’s still trickling blood. I grit my teeth and look over at Kolivan before letting my gaze drop to Keith’s vital signs; his heart beat is weaker, it makes my hands shake as I look back up at the hologram with clenched fists.

Suddenly the figure’s form, Shiro’s form, flickers and begins to morph. It’s like watching a new layer of paint being brushed on an already painted canvas as black hair becomes red and the black in Shiro’s armor becomes white, I take a startled step back when I see myself appear where Shiro once stood. My entire body freezes. It’s beyond strange, it’s like watching a video that I’m in but have no memory of, even stranger still that I just watched  _ myself  _ replacing  _ Shiro _ , like a body snatcher.

I look over at Shiro with wide eyes and he looks back at me, I start violently when I hear my own voice over the com, “Keith,” The fake me says, kneeling down next to Keith with a hand on his shoulder. Keith looks up at them, him, Will, and winces, his grip on the knife tightens as he moves to hold it closer to himself, like he’s cradling a child. I’m so beyond stunned that I can’t even begin to process what’s going on save to witness what’s being laid in front of me.

“Keith, you know that there’s always a choice.” Will says, his hand travels from Keith’s shoulder to cup Keith’s face in a tender fashion. Keith leans his head into Will’s palm with a desperate sigh as he speaks again, “Don’t you care about how you’re hurting the rest of us? You’re hurting  _ Shiro _ . You’re hurting me.” 

Keith makes a noise I can’t even begin to describe at the back of his throat as he reaches his free hand up and touches Will’s where they cup his jaw, he looks like he’s seconds away from blacking out. 

Will keeps talking, his voice is sickeningly sweet, “Why are you choosing to be so selfish?”

The words cut deep. I feel it in my chest like I just watched myself stab Keith with his own knife.  _ No. I would  _ **_never_ ** _ say that. Keith has got to know that I would never say that to him. Keith is not selfish. I never would’ve said that. Why the fuck would that bastard make him think I’d say that?  _ I grit my teeth as I watch Keith’s eyes close, his breath rasps.

When he opens his eyes again he looks directly into Will’s, staring there for a long, long time before his eyes fall again to the side, “... I’ve made my choice.”

Will’s hands abruptly drop from Keith’s face and he stands upright. Keith looks up at him with what I can only describe as a heartbroken expression as Will hisses, “Then you’ve chosen to be alone.” 

“I would never say that.” I whisper under my breath with no filter from thought to tongue, staring at the holographic video feed as I speak again with a firmer tone, my voice is shaking, “He’s got to know that I would  _ never say that. _ ”

The fake Will turns on heel and walks away from Keith where he kneels on the ground with the knife in his hand. His eyelashes flutter and after a moment he croaks, “Shiro… Will! Wait!” He presses his hand to the ground to rise when his arm gives, he falls back to his knees and I feel my entire body shake as I watch his heaving breaths. 

Suddenly his head rises up again. He’s staring out at open, empty space, and I hear his voice is soft and vulnerable, “... Dad?”

I snap. “What the fuck is going on?” I whirl, glaring fiercely at Kolivan with a threatening step towards him when two of the six Blades in the room take a matching step towards me, a warning. I glare at them when I hear Keith speaking again on the com, talking to an empty room,  _ “Of course I do.”  _

I look over at Shiro in desperation for help but Shiro isn’t looking at me; he’s looking down at Keith’s health monitor. When I look down as well I can see that his heart rate is continuing to drop.  _ That’s not a normal level. It’s just been getting worse. _

_ Keith is dying. _

“You need to get him out of there!” Shiro barks, snapping towards Kolivan with a fierce gleam in his eyes that would make anyone with a spine tremble. 

“He can decide when he wants to leave.” Kolivan answers in an even tone, like he isn’t the reason that  _ Keith is keeled over on the floor, talking to someone who isn’t there. His dad.  _ I can still hear Keith talking but I force myself to tune it out.  _ I’ve already eavesdropped on him having an important moment with someone he loves, I’m not doing it again. Especially when it’s being induced by some sick chemistry. _

“You’re messing with his mind!” Shiro takes a step towards Kolivan, his eyebrows are furrowed as he snarls, “You’re going to kill him!”

Kolivan turns slightly from the glass, his eyeless gaze moving to us, “... Knowledge or death, Shiro.” 

_ Keith is dying. This is it, Keith is going to die.  _

_ Like hell. _

Shiro snarls like a fierce dire wolf, turning with fists clenched towards the door, “I’m calling this off!” I immediately move with him towards the door where Keith went through when all of a sudden the Blades that have been unmoving shadows in the corners of the room step forward, blocking our escape. Shiro growls and shoves one aside but they immediately wrap an arm around his, immobilizing him as another swoops in to grab his other arm. 

“Shiro!” I cry, and without second thought I launch myself at the Blade holding Shiro, tackling them to the ground with my shoulder into their stomach. We hit the ground with a loud  _ thud _ , I hear the sound of a scuffle behind me when two hands grab my arms and hoist me up, locking my arms behind my back and this time I don’t hold back, I kick, I shout, I fight desperately at the hands holding me when a large arm comes across my vision and locks itself under my jaw, putting me in a chokehold. I can see the swish of a tail out of the corner of my vision as they keep me still, they aren’t applying pressure, but if I continue to fight back I’d choke myself, no matter how hard I claw at the armor on their forearms or how I kick out into the air to loosen my grip or try to bite at anything within my mouth’s range but it’s useless, the Galra is holding me like a misbehaving child.

I look over to see Shiro has two Blades on his back, one holding each of his arms in an iron grip. He looks at me and I at him, the only thing inside me that hasn’t succumbed to the burning fury is the fear that wells in my throat at the helplessness of the situation.  _ We’re stuck at the base, cornered, no way out, no way to get to Keith.  _

_ I knew that this was a bad idea. _

_ I hate it when my gut is right. _

Suddenly the entire room shakes violently, and the video feed of Keith in the front of the room cuts out. I hear the sound of loud cracks and groans when the stony floor below our feet begins to move, the massive Galra who holds me, Antok, lifts me off the ground and pulls me backwards by the neck as a block of the ceiling suddenly gives, chunks of stone crumble through ripped metal and crack the floor where we just stood, I worm my hands under his arm to hang onto it rather than allow myself to be thrown about like a rubber doll, and with the sudden shift I manage to squirm my way through. It gives me a buffer to breathe easier.  _ And to potentially wiggle out. _

A Blade runs into the room from the elevator, yelling as a loud, dull roar fills the air, “The Red Lion is attacking the base! It’s trying to break through!” 

_ God fucking BLESS the motherfucking LIONS.  _

“It has a link with Keith!” Shiro shouts, drawing Kolivan and the Blades left in the room’s attention to him, “It knows when he’s in danger, it’s coming for him!” The entire room seems to shudder as the whole base suddenly rattles, Shiro and I make eye contact and a moment of instantaneous understand comes between us. Overhead a massive groan sounds, and with a deft kick to Antok’s knee I squeeze out from under his hold, both of us getting knocked over as a chunk of the ceiling falls in, crashing in the place we just were. I scramble to my feet as Shiro punches a Blade holding him and slips out from their grasp, together we sprint for the open doorway towards where Keith left. 

I hear the sound of running steps behind us, I glance back only briefly to count the number of pursuers before Shiro suddenly slides on the smooth floors, skidding through a doorway that has a rock crushed on one half that holds it half open. Through the doorway I can see a set of elevators leading down, and I quickly realize that’s why Shiro stopped. I run through and then look at the doorway with a half formed idea, I lift my foot and kick the rock crushing half the doorway with all of my strength, once, twice, until it shifts. It rumbles before it rolls, allowing the door to close and not a moment too soon, I can see black shadows underneath the closed door on the ashen floor.  _ That’ll stop them for a second.  _

“Will!” Shiro barks, he’s standing in an elevator with a hand on the door to hold it open for me. I sprint and slide in with him with unnaturally quick breath, the doorway slides shut and the elevator glides downward. For a bare second we look at one another with panting breath but before any thoughts or fears settle in the base shakes again, Shiro grabs the back of my armor as the lights in the elevator suddenly flicker and briefly we slide downwards in dead blackness, all I can hear is a earth shaking roar from outside the base, the cry of the Red Lion. It’s followed by a powerful, thundering crash as the lights suddenly come back on, the elevator hitches before it drops to the ground. We hang onto each other tightly until the elevator’s stopped, but when we let go of each other the door doesn’t open. I kick it in a desperate flurry, my heart is in my throat, right as Shiro steps up, punching his prosthetic into the seam of the door and forcefully ripping the door open like it’s made of cheese.  _ I fucking love you, Shiro.  _ The light of the new space opening before us. 

My vision tunnels on Keith, laying on the floor on his back with his knife against his chest.  _ Thank God, we found him.  _ Shiro and I immediately sprint forward, and once we’re close Keith groans, his eyelashes fluttering as he takes a rugged breath. When his dark, blue violet eyes open it fills me with such instantaneous relief that I sigh, all my relief and fear fall out in one word,  _ “Keith.” _

He looks at Shiro to his right and then up at me with a delirious expression, his eyes open and shut like he’s still waking up from a deep sleep. Shiro grasps his shoulders and pulls him to his feet, I put my hands on his back just in case he were to fall as Shiro lets out a terrified breath, “Keith, are you okay?” Immediately I move to Keith’s side, his head lolls slightly as his arm finds its way around my shoulder and I nearly give as he leans against me,  _ he’s barely able to hold himself up.  _ I wrap an arm around his waist to hold him upright and he immediately winces, letting out a sharp breath of pain. I release his side, looking down and seeing the blood shining wet and red on the black of my gloves.  _ God, he’s bleeding still, he’s already bled so much. _ I feel a buzz against my chest as Shiro touches Keith’s head as if checking for a fever, that’s when I see the silver light emanating from beneath my chestplate. 

Without the barest hint of a thought I grab the White Lion’s stone from around my neck and yank it over my head, twisting awkwardly with Keith’s slumped on my shoulder and draping the chain around his neck. As the silver light casts across his face it illuminates a cut on his lip and the shine of blood at the base of his nose to show it’s about to bleed.  _ This will help for the immediate moment, but we have got to get him back to the Castle, he needs to get in a healing pod as soon as possible.  _ “It’s okay, we’ve got you.” I murmur fiercely as I wrap an arm tight around Keith’s waist to hold him upright when Shiro takes up his other side, pulling Keith’s other arm over his shoulder. Suddenly a shout sounds from across the room, “Stop what you’re doing!” 

I tense and immediately look up to see an elevator door opening to a collected bunch of Blades of Marmora, Kolivan at the front with Antok on his shoulder.

“What’re you talking about?” Keith mumbles, clearing his throat as his gaze suddenly sharpens, looking between me and Shiro supporting him and then at Kolivan, “What’s going on?” 

The room shakes as a shattering roar sounds outside, I can hear the rip of stone and metal in the distance,  _ the Red Lion is literally going to cleave its way into the base to get to Keith. They can’t stand in our way for long.  _

“Call off your beast!” Kolivan shouts over the din as the Blades taking threatening steps towards us. Something dark and furious and  _ red  _ seizes my veins, I clutch onto Keith tighter but this time just underneath the cut under his ribs, I can still feel the squelch of blood under the material of my gloves. 

“Move out of the way!” Shiro barks with bared teeth as he supports Keith’s right side,  _ “We’re leaving!” _

I can hear Kolivan’s rage in his voice, “You are  _ not leaving with that blade! _ It doesn’t belong to you, you  _ failed  _ to awaken it!” 

“What does that  _ mean?! _ ” Keith shouts, his grip on my shoulder suddenly tightens and something sharp and hard digs into my shoulder. When I look over I see Keith’s knife, still clutched in his hand, pressed against my shoulder. 

I bare my teeth and glare at the collected Galra, “Get the fuck out of the way, or  _ fucking die! _ ” I shout, and as if on queue the walls tremble with another groan sounding throughout the base. 

“Surrender the blade!” Antok roars, his tail swishes as he brandishes his sword and charges forward; immediate terror seizes my chest, I hold onto Keith tighter and shift forward protectively to put myself between Antok and Keith. Shiro pulls out from under Keith’s arm as his prosthetic suddenly roars to life, shouting something indistinct as he blocks Antok’s slash, their matched strength straining against one another from the blow.

“Wait!” I blink as Keith suddenly pushes away from me, I look over at him with wide, stunned eyes as he staggers to stand on his feet on his own, the light of the White Lion’s stone around his neck glowing like a small star against his chest. With a shaky hand he holds out his knife, the hilt pointed toward Kolivan and the Blades as he grasps the blade itself, the rune shines dully between his fingers as he states with a rugged voice, “Just take the knife.” 

Everything freezes. The shaking of the base, the Blades, my heart. Antok and Shiro both drop their hands, looking back at Keith with wide, shocked eyes. 

I can’t help it. I speak with a soft voice, “After all that?”

Keith takes a ragged breath, his arm holding the knife shakes from exertion but his gaze is hard and resolute, “It doesn’t matter where I come from. I know who I am.” He looks down at the knife, his eyebrows are furrowed and after a moment he speaks again with growing confidence, looking up at Kolivan, “We need to work together to defeat Zarkon, if that means I give up this knife then fine.” No one in the room moves, I can only hear my own pulse as Keith shifts, holding the knife out farther, “Take it.”

The rune at the base of the knife’s blade suddenly gleams. It begins to glow, brighter by the second until its glow stretches across the entire knife’s surface, a violet beacon of light. 

“You’ve awoken the blade!” Kolivan’s voice is incredulous, stunned, and shocked as the knife suddenly flashes, and with a brilliant cascade of violet stars the knife extends outward into a curved sword thrice the knife’s original length. 

A sword that looks exactly like the ones clasped on the back of every Blade of Marmora member in the room. 

“But the only way that this is possible…” Kolivan speaks with an awed tone, my blood abruptly ices as his voice rings in my ears. “... Is if Galra blood runs through your veins.”

_ Only possible if Galra blood runs through his veins.  _

_ Keith has Galra blood in his veins? Then that means…  _

_ Keith is a Galra. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert longest yeah boi ever*  
> That seems like a nice, dramatic place to end it, right? Right?  
> I hate how this episode is set up as a timer in s2 so that's why I'm cutting this down a bit more, this bit is gonna be pretty inconsistent with the canon, and it kinda will be from now on.  
> I've wanted to write this chapter and the one following for literally months, I'm literally shaking in excitement that it's happening!!!  
> I thrive off of the angst.  
> Note: I'm just writing as I go along and will most definitely be going back to edit and perhaps rewrite some of this bc that's how I roll


	10. Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the recent revelations found at the Blade of Marmora's base, the trio who went inside are in varying stages of shock. Shiro is able to keep his head in the game, eyes always on the mission, and now with some answers to questions Keith has always harbored he feels more at peace than he has in a long time. Will, however, is reeling and fully immersed in survival mode, the Galra who have hurt the team in the past now haunt his present and it's coming to a head. He knows who the real enemy is, but the lines are blurrier now than they once were, especially in regards with his feelings towards Keith. As he wrestles with these feelings, more questions are raised, questions about identity, who one is and who one wants to be, across the board with each person aboard the Castle.  
> \--  
> **Warning: Emotional turmoil (dunno if that should be warned or not but here we go?)**

_ Keith is Galra. _

_ Keith. Is. A. Galra.  _

I turn and stare at him with wide eyes, the red blood on his lip, the shaking of his hands as they clasp the blade of Marmora,  _ his  _ blade.  _ Keith is a Galra.  _

“... What?” Keith murmurs after a moment, his eyes are wide and his voice is small. The violet light of the sword fades completely, leaving only the silver light around his neck from the White Lion’s stone. The base is still, presumably the Red Lion has stopped attacking with Keith being out of imminent danger.

Confused and pissed beyond belief, my gaze travels down the shambles of the hall to Kolivan where he stands with the other stunned Blades of Marmora. Hissing, I feel like I’m breathing fire, “You put him through a  _ whole fucking trial _ that he couldn’t have  _ fucking accomplished _ if he wasn’t  _ Galra?! _ ” 

“Will, now’s not the time.” Shiro commands and I snap my jaw shut, silently glaring at Kolivan’s expressionless mask from across the way. From the corner of my eye I see movement and when I look over I see Keith suddenly beginning to stumble, teetering dangerously to the side. I swoop in without thought and catch him, bracing a hand on his chest as I loop his arm back around my shoulder to keep him upright. He groans under his breath as he looks down at his chest, and then up at me with a look I can’t even begin to discern.  _ His eyes are the same. Purple and blue and gray like looking through a telescope.  _

“I apologize for the turmoil this has caused you.” I snap my gaze up agonizingly from Keith’s as Kolivan speaks in a deep voice, “The first logical conclusion was that one of our Blades had fallen without our knowledge and their blade fell to your friend’s hands. If it were not the case, then the second logical conclusion was that they would have passed down their blade to their offspring, as is tradition.” Keith pulls upright a bit with a shaky breath, when I look over at him I can see his gaze is locked on Kolivan’s completely, hanging onto his every word as the Blade Leader continues, “The blade can only be unlocked by its owner, therefore the offspring of said owner also carry the key in their blood.  _ Your  _ blood.” Kolivan says with a tip of his head towards Keith, whose breath rasps beside me, “This is why completing the Trials was the way to unlock the blade’s secrets, it revealed that this is indeed the case; that one of our Blades is a part of your ancestry, and subsequently this is how their blade found its way to your hands.”

_ The only thing I know about Keith’s past is that he is an orphan. It makes me wonder if he knew anything about his parents, what happened to them, but based on how far away Keith’s gaze is something tells me he hasn’t been around blood family for a long time, if ever. This has got to be a huge deal for him.  _

_ But I wonder if he thinks that this was worth it. _

“So… I take it that this means you’ve rethought about allying yourselves with Voltron.” Shiro says after a moment his arms are crossed with a set in his brow.

“Yes.” Kolivan states, nodding with his arms behind his back. “We have.”

“Oh, what brought on this change of heart? Was the Lion about to break down your doorstep? Or are you just that sorry?” I can’t help how derisive my voice is, it’s the only thing stopping me from fully speaking what’s  _ really  _ on my mind.  _ Chiefly how I want to beat the shit out of Kolivan like those Blades did to Keith, Blades that  _ **_he_ ** _ set on him. He’s lucky I don’t have my bayard.  _

“For a thousand years, the Blade of Marmora survived due to secrecy and trust.” Kolivan raises his gaze towards me, I fight not to shake in fury or in fear as he continues, “It appeared that Voltron could not be trusted. With your friend proving the blade is truly his, that trust has been restored.”

It takes all the self control I have not to straight up spit at him, “Trust is a two way street, you  _ pig _ .”

“Will.” I look down at Keith where he leans his head on my shoulder, his breath is still coming in rugged gasps that worries me beyond belief. He peers up at me with a meaningful, silencing look, the bruise that had begun to blossom on his jaw is already beginning to turn as violet at his eyes, my heart stops where it sits in my throat.  _ Fine. I’m not letting this go, but for you I’ll deal with it at another time. When you’re in a healing pod, specifically. _

Kolivan doesn’t answer for a long moment, he straightens slightly as his voice takes on an altogether new tone that I cannot identify, “We have never had allies in our war against Zarkon’s Empire.”

“Well, you do now.” Shiro states firmly, his jaw is set as he holds out a hand to shake with his gaze locked on Kolivan. A part of me wants to ask Shiro  _ really are you fucking sure about that? We were literally about to fight our way through them to get out of here, now you’re offering a handshake?  _

_ I suppose he’s in the right. After all, we do need them, they have intelligence that we simply don’t and without them we’re literally at square one on stopping a dictator, a task that goes beyond… anything comprehensible. Fuck damnit. I still don’t trust them, not a damn bit. _

The Blade of Marmora’s leader’s masked expression stays on Shiro’s face until he grasps his hand, allowing Shiro to shake it before he speaks again, “We have a plan in the works of defeating Zarkon’s Empire, but we are still waiting on one of our key operatives to contact us from the inside about Zarkon’s plans. Once we have that information, we-”

“Can we  _ please  _ talk about this later?” I rattle pleadingly, grasping onto Keith’s waist tighter as I flicker my gaze from Shiro to Kolivan. “He needs to get in a healing pod!”

“I’ll be fine.” Keith rumbles. I look at him with narrowed eyes as he pulls his thumb on the chain around his neck, the White Lion’s stone clanging against the armor on my shoulder as he gives me a smirk, “Got that healing power, now.”

_ Fuck.  _

“Shut up, you know that’s not gonna be enough.” I state with a frown, flickering my gaze down to the countless wounds littering his body before I look back up at Shiro with a desperate expression,  _ come on, please _ . 

Shiro reads my expression within a beat as he turns back to Kolivan, “Come with us to the Castle. Princess Allura and the rest of the Paladins will want to meet you, and from there we can discuss this plan of yours.”

Immediate fear leaps into my throat, “Wait, Shiro, no!”

Shiro turns towards me with narrowed eyes, his voice is barely controlled as he growls with little patience,  _ “Will-” _

“No, listen to me.” I let out a breath, and despite the fear in my throat I surprise myself by speaking in a level tone, “Think about it. They had to have seen the Red Lion attacking the base. When we return with Keith hurt, they’re gonna think the worst. We have to go back first and tell them that everything’s okay, give them some time before we bring the Blades aboard.” Shiro frowns at this and so I speak in a more level tone, “How do you think they’re going to react if we come  _ with  _ Kolivan? How do you think  _ Allura’s  _ gonna react, don’t you remember what happened with Ulaz?”

Shiro’s gaze hardens and for a moment I wonder if I crossed some sort of boundary before he lets out a resigned sigh, “... You’re right.” 

Before Shiro turns Keith straightens in my grasp, hissing as he shakes his head, “No, I still have questions I want answered!” He’s staring right at Kolivan as he speaks, his grip on my shoulder is so hard it’s like I’m clamped in a shark’s jaws. 

Kolivan peers back at him for a moment right as Shiro shakes his head, “You can get them answered tomorrow, after you’ve spent some time in a healing pod.” 

Keith glares at him, hard, so I elaborate on his behalf in a softer tone as Shiro turns back to Kolivan, “They’ll be coming to the Castle tomorrow, you’ll probably only be waiting for a few hours after you get out of the pod.” Keith’s expression doesn’t change in the slightest except now it’s pointed at me, and it’s like he’s raising his knife and stabbing into my soul. He opens his mouth to argue again so as I furrow my eyebrows I murmur in a bare whisper before I think to get the better of myself, “Please.” 

This, surprisingly, clamps Keith’s mouth shut. He watches me with a morphing expression that’s more open and less abrasive and my chest stutters out of time, right as I realize that that’s almost the same expression Keith made when the faux me kneeled down in front of him and held his face in his hands. 

_ … So what the fuck does this mean? _

I become aware of reality again thanks to Shiro’s voice “-Another pathway opens tomorrow. By that time we have filled the team in and by the time you hear back from your operative we can move forward together.”

Kolivan doesn’t speak for a moment but after a pause he nods, turning to Antok who stands resolutely at his side, “Get the boy’s armor.”

I let out a breath and shift to hoist Keith up in my arms, he hisses at the jolt so I try to pull him closer against me to keep him from jostling. “You think you can still fly?” I murmur quietly to him.

“Yeah.” Keith’s voice is low and gravelly as he leans on my shoulder for support, “Just set me down in the cockpit and I’ll be fine.”

“Why isn’t the stone healing him?” I look up as Shiro sweeps in under Keith’s other arm, his gray eyes flicker from the light around his neck up to me with clear confusion. 

“It is.” I feel the hard surface of Keith’s sword digging into my back as he clings onto Shiro and I tighter, his eyebrows furrowed as he murmurs in a deep growl, like it’s painful for him to do so, “I don’t know, I just feel… weak.”

I furrow my eyebrows with a set jaw, “It must be that serum they gave you.” I glance over at Shiro and as I do I see the three knobs in Keith’s spine, the ones they stabbed into him when this all started. They don’t glow purple any longer, they’re completely black and lifeless. Behind my eyes I can see the three purple bars, bars that vanished, when Keith stumbled out of that elevator. 

“Shiro, hold him, I’ve gotta get these out.” Shiro follows my gaze before he nods, shifting Keith’s arm on his shoulder. I brace a hand on Keith’s side to make sure Shiro’s got him before I slip out from under him, moving around to his back. I evaluate its hold; it looks like it was just… placed there.  _ I’m sure I can just pull them out, maybe they’re like syringes? _ I hesitantly wrap my fingertips around them and pull, but right as I apply some pressure Keith jolts with a sharp cry of pain, I quickly retract my hand, Shiro throws me a look of worry over his shoulder which I meet with wide, stunned eyes. “What the hell was that?” Keith asks breathlessly, casting an accusatory glance at me over his shoulder.  _ Fuck. What the hell are these things? How do I get them out?  _

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I whirl around and instinctively press my back against Keith’s when the large Galra, Antok, approaches. He’s carrying Keith’s armor under one arm like he’s a parent hanging onto his kid’s toys, and when he stops in front of me he peers down with a swish of his tail across the ashy floor as he speaks again, “I can get them off.”

Immediately I bare my teeth, “Stay back, you  _ fucking _ -”

“Will!” Shiro barks, and when I look over at him he gives me an exasperated expression before he sighs, “Just let him help.”

I set my jaw, looking at Keith as he leans on Shiro’s shoulder and then at Antok, who remains unmoving with Keith’s armor in his hand. Reluctantly I take a step out of the way, holding Keith’s shoulder with one hand as I watch Antok like a hawk. 

Antok doesn’t set down Keith’s armor. He touches the knob on his spine and turns it like he’s opening a door and it pops off, Keith doesn’t even stir as it clangs to the floor. Antok does this for the other two, and once they’re off he steps around us without another word and heads toward the elevators. 

_ … Alright then. I’m sure I could’ve figured it out without your help but…  _

As soon as he’s out of earshot Shiro turns to me with a frustrated set in his brow, “Will, I understand you’re-”

“You don’t understand jack shit if you think I’m gonna be all buddy buddy with them after what they did today.” I snap back, setting my jaw as I fix Shiro with a hard look, “Were you not there when we were watching them beating the shit out of Keith?”

“ _ I _ decided to do their Trial on  _ their  _ terms.” Keith straightens a bit in Shiro’s hold and I balk a little when he looks at me, his expression is a mask but his eyes are almost black in the shadow of his bangs, “You heard Kolivan, all of the Blades go through the Trial at some point. Don’t punish them for their traditions that  _ I decided  _ to take part in.”

I have no idea what to say. I simply stare, my inner thoughts sound like static.

A Blade arrives from one of the two still working elevators and delivers a carrying message into the space, “The Red Lion has returned to its position on the first flight deck.”

“Then let’s go.” Shiro wraps an arm around Keith’s waist and starts to step forward and I quickly follow, lifting Keith’s sword arm back over my shoulder to balance out the support. Keith walks along alright, but he’s leaning heavily upon Shiro and I; however, to my absolute relief I can see the less mortal wounds on his sides and arms seem to have healed, the light of the White Lion’s stone reflects off of the black Blade of Marmora chestplate like a star hanging in the sky. 

We embark on an elevator with Antok bearing Keith’s armor, Shiro nods a farewell to Kolivan as he and the other Blades stay behind and start cleaning up the rubble from the floors as we ascend. I can’t help but watch the Galra beside us as the violet lights sporadically illuminate his mask, my stomach tied in knots. 

_ He decided to perform their trial on their terms. The Trial of Marmora, something that all of their members do, apparently, I wonder if they get knives and then they become swords when they do it, or if Keith is special in that he already had his knife when he started, and that’s why they let him do it. Where do the knives come from? Specifically where did  _ **_Keith’s_ ** _ knife, now sword, come from, if the Galra have never been to Earth? I still have so many questions.  _ Keith takes a slow, ragged breath and draws my gaze to him, his expression is set and determined despite how his lip is still twisted in pain.  _ If I have all of these questions, I can only imagine the kind racing through Keith’s right now. Does he know how much Galra he is? Did he have an inkling about this at all? Why didn’t he share anything about his knife with any of us, why did he keep it all such a big secret? Why didn’t he say anything back at the Castle about the knife, about his thoughts on Ulaz’ blade being like his.  _

_ This really does just make me realize how I don’t know him nearly as well as I thought I did. _

_ Keith is Galra.  _

When get close Antok holds out Keith’s helmet to him.  _ Must be getting close to the surface.  _ I reach out and take it on his behalf and set it on his head, Keith grumbles something inaudible as he pulls his arm from around my shoulder and puts it on himself, struggling as he’s still holding his sword at hand. 

“So is it stuck like that now?” I ask as I engage the oxygen in my suit. Keith looks at me incredulously once his helmet is on before I elaborate, “Is your knife a sword now? Like, permanently?”

Much to my surprise, Antok answers me, “Now that the blade’s been awakened, your friend will be able to change its form at will.”

Keith blinks at this, looking at the sword in his hand with a newfound gaze. I watch as he closes his eyes, and after gripping it tightly for a solid ten seconds the blade suddenly glows, retracting with the soft flash of violet light back into its original knife shape, the exact same knife I remember save the sigil glowing upon the hilt.  _ Keith is Galra.  _

We break out onto the surface where we originally went in and see the Red Lion standing poised with its barrier activated like it hasn’t moved at all, the only hint it had is the claw marks on the mountain top behind us and the red magma that is still cooling against its stony surface. As we approach the barrier falls and the Red Lion shifts, kneeling down and opening its jaws to allow us inside. Antok beside us immediately falters, taking a step back until it freezes again, and a small part of me is filled with a bit of sick satisfaction. I recognize it’s sick, I shouldn’t feel good about him being afraid of the Red Lion, but I can’t help it.  _ That’s right. That’s Keith’s Lion. You’re lucky he’s okay, otherwise none of you would be.  _   
Shiro relinquishes his hold on Keith to get up the narrow passage, turning to Antok to take Keith’s armor and then following up from behind as I help Keith up the stairs. I open my mouth to joke,  _ this is just like back on Olkarion,  _ until I realize that that’s the last thing I should be joking about. Probably ever.  _ Keith is Galra.  _

I help Keith into the pilot’s seat once we arrive, and to my shock he doesn’t even slump, he immediately sits upright and at attention as he grasps the controls, Shiro files in behind me. He grasps the back of my suit and then the back of Keith’s seat as Keith presses forward on his controls; the Red Lion rises, the thrusters in its feet like thunder beneath our feet as he guides us back from hence we came. He pulls up the guidance system that shows the safe passage on his screen, and as he goes he grits his teeth and flies with smooth movements, like he wasn’t literally almost just beaten to death. The cut on his lip is gone but the smear of blood remains, the heavy gash on his arm and in his side is still there, however, and I can see the one on his arm still bleeds.  _ Better, but not the greatest. Come on, Silver, I know you can do better than that.  _

Keith gets us through the storm with amazing precision, and as soon as we leave the azure flames of the blue star behind our coms are immediately bombarded in voices, “Oh my crow, are you guys okay?” “What happened down there?” “We saw the Red Lion attacking the base!” 

Shiro touches his helmet and glances down at Keith, “We’re fine, we’re on our way back. Coran, we need you to set up a healing pod.”

Allura responds immediately in a tone full of righteous rage,  _ “What happened?” _

“We can explain when we get there, just hold your judgements until you get the whole story, alright?” Shiro replies, flickering his gaze over at me and then to the back of Keith’s head. 

“It’s not Will again, is it?” Lance replies in a slightly sardonic tone. 

“No, it isn’t.” I reply sharply, letting out a sigh through gritted teeth.  _ But I wish it was. I’d much prefer I was the one who was beat into a pulp instead of Keith, I don’t care the reason why he did or why it was okay, or whatever. I’d take a thousand punches and stabs if it meant Keith would have been spared. _

“I’m on it!” Coran answers, the only answer I was looking to hear, and I let out a soft breath. 

Keith brings the Red Lion into his hanger, and as soon as he touches down I hold out an arm to help him get up. He doesn’t take it at first, but as soon as he’s on his feet he begins to lean dangerously to one side, and only then does he grab my arm and allow me to hold onto him. 

“Are you going to tell them?” Keith suddenly asks, flickering his gaze between me and Shiro with a genuine expression, like he actually wants an answer. I look up at Shiro and he at me, and for a long moment neither of speak, both of us know innately what in particular he’s talking about. 

“That might be something best for the team to hear from you.” Shiro answers, resting a hand on Keith’s back. 

Keith mutely nods with a resolute look in his eye, otherwise his expression doesn’t change, so Shiro pauses to let us head out first. Keith winces as I help him down the stairs, I pause and proceed slower, letting him set our pace, and as we exit the maw of the Red Lion the others rush into the room. 

“Holy crow!” Hunk pauses just in the doorway, looking at us with wide eyes as he stammers, “What?! It’s  _ Keith _ ? I totally thought it would be Will!” 

_ Wow, am I really that predictable? Or perhaps accident prone. Or unlucky. _

Lance comes from around Hunk and when he sees us he starts, “Keith!” He steps forward as we come out and holds his hands out as if to help, so I quickly wave a hand at him to get Keith’s other side. I can hear Keith grumble under his breath and I see him looking down with red ears as Lance steps in. “What happened, man?” Lance asks, flickering his gaze to Keith and then to me with wide eyes. 

“Long story, medbay first.” I state, and out of the corner of my eye I see Allura and Pidge break into the room. Both of them approach and as they open their mouths I snap impatiently,  _ “Medbay first!” _

To my surprise, they stop, their mouths shutting with stunned expressions. I don’t look back, I move in coordination with Lance to make our way down the hall to the infirmary, I can hear the others’ footsteps following in our wake. Inside the room Coran stands at the platform with a healing pod already open and waiting for us, much to my relief. 

“Gotta take the armor off,” Lance says once we’re in, and when I turn to look at him he gestures to the Blade of Marmora’s breastplate, “Metal interferes with the machine.” 

_ Oh. So that’s why I always wake up only in a flight suit in these things.  _ Keith twists wordlessly and starts to tug on the armor before he winces with a gasp so I pull the Blade of Marmora breastplate off of him with gentle fingers on his behalf, he drops his knife next to it. He doesn’t speak; his eyes are distant and he looks for all intents and purposes deep in thought. I keep my hands on his back then his chest to support him until he’s standing in the pod, and just as I’m about to pull away he grabs my wrist. I blink and look at him with wide eyes as he peers down at me with the gaze of deep space, speaking in course, barely audible whisper, “I’m sorry.” 

I stare at him cluelessly. His expression is masked with cracks of pain but otherwise I can’t read his expression, _like I ever could._ My mind feels foggy. _Did I just pretend I knew you when all along I knew nothing at all? Who even are you?_ _Who is the real Keith Kogane?_

Slowly I pull my hand away from his grasp. He lets his hands fall without a change in expression as the pod doors close. Silver mist envelops him, I watch his eyes fall close as blue symbols and lights flicker outside of the glass, showing vital signs and then words flying by, like _hemorrhage_ and _concussion._ _Great signs._

I merely stare at them as I take off my helmet and drop it to the ground, trying to shift through the black and violet smoke of my mind with only one sentence in clarity:  _ Keith is Galra.  _

Pidge’s voice is like a knife in the silence of the medbay, “So, will you tell us  _ now _ what happened at the base? Did they attack you guys or something?”

I turn around slowly as Lance points to the Blade of Marmora’s chestplate and Keith’s knife lying on the ground, “Was it ‘cause Keith brought his knife,  _ even though  _ they told you to go unarmed? I  _ knew _ -” 

“It’s more complicated than that, Lance.” I can’t help it, my words are biting and harsh. He looks at me with a start, his accusatory expression morphs entirely to surprise.  _ Oh no. I sound like I’m pissed. Actually, I can’t tell how I feel right now, nevertheless what sort of emotion I’m projecting. I think I’m still in semi-survival mode. It was ‘protect Keith, get Keith out, get Keith in the healing pod’ and now that that’s done… I think my emotions are about to catch up to me. If it starts happening while we’re in this meeting, I might have to leave before I lose control, I don’t know what that’s gonna look like and I don’t want to scare the others or make them worry about me when I’m the last person they should be worrying about. _

“How complicated can it be?” Allura demands, and when I lock eyes with her I almost immediately share some sort of mental wavelength with her, as the cold anger in her expression seems to sense whatever she sees in mine and I feel it like ice pressed against my skin, her eyes widen slightly.  _ What is my expression right now?  _

_ Doesn’t matter. Make it a mask.  _

“Actually… pretty complicated.” Shiro looks over at me and then I at him, and only for a moment do I allow some emotion to shine through.  _ You tell them. You know I won’t do it right.  _

Pidge strides forward suddenly, her gaze locked on the pile of Keith’s stuff at my feet. She reaches out and grabs his knife, holding it in her hand for a moment before she turns, holding it up in her small palms before she murmurs, “Does it have something to do with the fact that the Blade of Marmora’s sigil is on Keith’s knife?”

_ Damnit. Pidge is fucking observant.  _

Shiro and I share a glance as a note of surprise falls across the room.  _ How the fuck are we supposed to put this?  _

“Yeah.” Shiro says with a nod, letting out a sigh as he fixes his gaze on the others one at a time traversing the room, “Keith’s had the knife his whole life. When he saw Ulaz’s sword, he knew that somehow his knife is related to the Blade of Marmora, so he brought it with him to get some answers.”

“It led to a lot of miscommunication.” I rumble, staring at the knife in Pidge’s hand before my gaze flickers to hers. I can see her thoughts running a mile a minute, and I know if Shiro doesn’t get to it first, Pidge might. 

“So, what happened? Did one of their members lose it on Earth or something?” Hunk asks with a raised eyebrow, his head slightly tilted as he looks at Shiro and me with confusion. 

“We still don’t know the specifics.” Shiro answers enigmatically, with a slow turn of phrase. 

I follow up, “I don’t know if the Blade knows either.”

Shiro looks back at me with a worried light in his eyes before he speaks, “In order to get some answers, their leader, Kolivan, asked Keith to engage in a traditional ceremony they do to try and unlock the knife.” Shiro gestures with his head towards the healing pod with Keith asleep inside.

“So that’s how he got all beat up.” Lance answers, his eyebrows furrowed before he continues, “Alright, so did you get it or whatever? How can a knife have a lock anyway?” 

“They called it more of an awakening than an unlocking.” I answer, my voice sounds stone cold and flat.  _ Fucking hell. It’s starting.  _ I clear my throat and proceed in I hope is more of a normal manner, “And yeah. He did.”

“... Okay.” Lance furrows his eyebrows, flickering his gaze between us as he speaks with his hands, “So, if it’s that simple then why are you guys acting so weird right now?” 

My heart jumps in my throat and almost strangles me, I speak without a second thought, “Honestly, we aren’t the people to be interrogating about this right now. It’s Keith’s story, ask him when he gets out.”

“... Right.” Shiro adds with an uncomfortable glance thrown in my direction before he straightens to address the room, “What matters is that the Blade of Marmora have agreed to work with us.” Shiro says firmly, his voice returning to commanding and stoic, “Tomorrow their leader, Kolivan, has agreed to come over to the Castle and meet with us. They have a plan on how to take down Zarkon, but they’re still waiting on word from one of their inside operatives-”

Allura bares her teeth as she glares over at Shiro, “If  _ you think  _ that I’m going to be letting a  _ quiznaking Galra  _ on my ship after they’ve done  _ this _ -”

Somewhere deep in my chest words get pulled out from nowhere, “Allura, this is bigger than us right now.” The others gazes travel to me and I try not to balk, or panic that they might see how much I’m losing my shit on the inside, instead focusing on one thought,  _ the mission. Shiro would be proud _ . “The Blade of Marmora have been fighting Zarkon since he expanded the empire. They have valuable intelligence that no one else has, or  _ could  _ have, because yes, they’re Galra. We’ve got to remember that the real enemy is  _ Zarkon  _ and  _ his  _ empire, not the whole species itself.”  _ Huh, where are these words coming from? I believe them, I just can’t believe I can articulate anything right now, when I’m still hitching on the fact that Keith  _ **_is_ ** _ Galra. I don’t think that that should be a big deal. I don’t think it is… maybe it is. But it’s not. Is it?  _ “We need them, and frankly, they need us.” I continue, my eyes travel the room but my gaze is blinded, I can’t even tell you where I am right now as I’m too far in the mental fog, “They’ve had no allies, for a thousand years, and now we’re here; the Paladins of Voltron. We’re supposed to help everyone, regardless of origin.” I look at Allura with a soft gaze before I murmur in a soft voice, “You told us that. So, let’s fucking live up to the title, yeah?”

I wonder if they can sense the fact that I’m literally two seconds away from breaking down out of sheer nerves and built up fear and confusion because they’re staring at me, then one another, and I can see the others’ expressions harden with determination.  _ Shit, maybe it worked. Good, because that’s literally all I’ve got in me right now. Besides maybe crying. I do feel a bit like I’m about to cry. But what the hell for? Oh I know: stress and leftover anxiety.  _

“Will’s right.” Shiro says with an affirmative nod. After a moment he turns his gaze to Allura, his expression radiates worry and softness as he speaks in a gentle tone, “But we’re not gonna move forward without you, Princess. This is your Castle, and you’re just as much a part of team Voltron as the rest of us.” 

Allura’s gaze, hard as diamonds, lies on the glass where Keith resides with an audible swallow bobbing her throat. After a moment Allura sighs, frowning before she nods, slowly but surely, “... Fine.” She closes her eyes, standing as still as a sculpture before she slowly turns on heel and marches from the room. One after the other the rest of the team filter out as well with various levels of confusion, I hear Shiro say something to them but I find my feet are unable to move. I turn back and look up at Keith up in the pod; he looks at complete peace, there’s no draw between his eyebrows, no dimple that forms from his perpetually furrowed expression.  _ I almost never dream when I’m in that thing. I wonder if it’s something about the system, if it’s truly sleep or something medically induced. He told me once, back on Olkarion, that he has nightmares. I remember the other day when I was out in the hallway, having a breakdown after a dream, I asked if he had dreams having completely forgotten that conversation. I wonder what he dreams about. Or if he’s dreaming now. _

I feel someone is still standing behind me. Slowly I turn around come face to face with Lance, who stands without hint of moving while looking at me expectantly for answers, his question written across his concerned expression. _Oh no. He noticed. He noticed. Oh no._ _No, no no-_ My throat locks, and the terror and anxiety that I didn’t even realize had been building up suddenly breaks. 

“Hey man-” Lance doesn’t even get two words out before I go down, I fall more than I sit, resting my hands on the two to three stairs leading up to the pod as tears made of straight up nerves well up in my eyes, I cover my face in my hands and feel that I’m shaking, badly. “Whoa, okay, easy.” Lance’s hands brace my shoulders as they shake, sobs I didn’t realize I was holding are coming out unrestrained, I can feel him moving to sit beside me but as soon as the river flows the dam is so far broken that I can’t even find the pieces to mend it.

Now that Keith’s okay, we’re out of imminent danger and we’re back at the Castle, it all catches up, the events crash over me like rough waves at sea when you’re in too deep; the burning wrath from watching Keith getting beaten and cut to hell by the Blades helplessly, the sheer terror of that moment when they had him on the floor and would press their swords to his neck,  _ surrender the blade and the pain will cease _ . 

_ I felt this when I watched Sendak torturing Shiro. Why do I have to watch the others get hurt when I can’t do anything about it? This time, though, I could’ve. I could’ve fought tooth and nail to get past the Blades to get down to him, hell, I could’ve told him not to go, but no. I let him.  _

_ Please, he never would’ve listened to me if I told him not to go. He needed to do it. He needed answers, and I know that, I just wish it didn’t have to come at such a cost.  _

The worst is recalling the absolute mind fuck that was the false Shiro trying to convince him to give it up, then watching  _ myself… ‘Why are you choosing to be so selfish?’  _

_ I told him I wouldn’t stop him. Does Keith know that that wasn’t me or does he think that that happened? That it was real? Does he think that that’s something I would say, that that’s how I think of him? I can’t begin to unpack that, it’s already too real, I have to calm down. I have to calm down.  _

“It’s alright, it’s okay.” Lance murmurs, his hands rub up and down my back in a manner that is surprisingly soothing.  _ Get a hold of yourself. Don’t make him worry about me, not when there is so much more for everyone to be worried about.  _ I close my eyes and steel myself, wrangling the wild, writhing emotions back into a box like I’m trying to wrestle angry eels. After several minutes it begins to work, I feel the cap of the box right at the back of my throat, but there’s a cap on it now and that’s what matters. I return my breathing to normal through several shallower breaths, and once it is okay again I wipe the tears from my face.

“You alright?” Lance’s eyebrows are furrowed as he looks at me, I can feel his gaze but I can’t bring myself to meet them. The cap is too loose right now. 

“Yeah.” I stammer, taking another deep breath as I furiously dry my eyes on my gloves, “Yeah, it all just kinda… Caught up to me.” 

Lance nods, his hands interlaced loosely on his knees. After a moment of silence, the only sound in the room is the hum coming from Keith’s pod, he speaks again, “Wanna talk about it?”

I snort, glancing over at him with a surprisingly authentic smile, “You sound like me.”

Lance grins right back at me cheekily, “Annoying, isn’t it?” I roll my eyes at him. Surprisingly I kind of do wanna talk to him about it. All the thoughts circling through my head are dizzying, I want to get them out… but I don’t wanna transfer them to him, though. That wouldn’t be good.  _ And that’s putting it mildly.  _ “That seems to have messed you up a bit, huh?” Lance asks curiously, watching the side of my face with rapt attention that I don’t deserve. 

“Honestly? It’s  _ still _ fucking me up right now.” I press my fingers to my temples, letting out a sigh, “I’m sorry. It’s not that the trial was particularly traumatic for me or anything, I feel  _ so fucking shitty  _ that  _ I’m  _ the one that’s upset right now, I just…” I let out a pent up, frustrated sigh, my clenched fists resting on the floor, “I  _ hate  _ feeling helpless. There is  _ nothing  _ I hate more, but I had to watch Keith undergo the Trial, a trial that did  _ this  _ to him,” I gesture behind me with an accusing finger before I punch my fist into the ground, it hurts but surprisingly it makes me feel a little better as I snarl, “And I could do  _ absolute shit _ about it.”

Lance doesn’t say anything for a long time, not that I’m expecting him to, but after a minute or so he does speak in a low, gentle tone, “That really sucks, man.” I hum in agreement, hugging my knees to my chest and resting my chin on top of them with a resounding sigh. I don’t feel particularly better, but now I do feel less like I’m just trying to control myself, which in it of itself is a relief. After a few moments Lance speaks in a gentle tone, “You can’t protect everyone all the time, though. I know that’s your big thing and all, but…” I look over at him with furrowed eyebrows as he shrugs, “Sometimes you just gotta let stuff like that go. I mean, that sounds kinda bad when I say it like that, but like… don’t beat yourself up over it.” Lance gestures behind him, looking up at Keith with a gentle expression, “Point is he’s okay now, right? You helped him out. So… I’d call that a win.”

I’m quiet. Not just externally but my rampaging thoughts are easec, I just feel… I don’t know. Tamed is the best word I can think of for it.  _ He is okay, now.  _ “... Thanks, Lance.” I murmur, my eyebrows furrowed as I slowly close my eyes. “I appreciate the reality check.” 

“Any time, man.” Lance bumps my shoulder affectionately before he stands up, holding out a hand, “Now come on, I’m  _ starving,  _ with all of Hunk’s talk about burritos and space donuts and stuff, I’ve been hungry since breakfast!”

I snort slightly, taking Lance’s hand to help myself up, “I mean… I would judge you for that, but I can’t say much either.”

“Hah, that’s what I thought.” Lance nods confidently and moves to leave, but I find myself hesitating. I look back at Keith in the pod, at the words flying across, when I see the clock at the very top:  _ ‘IN STASIS: 20 d. APPROX. TIME RELEASE: 15 v’ _

“It’ll let him out in 15 ‘v’?” I ask aloud to confirm, glancing over at Lance with a raised eyebrow.

“Varga.” Lance answers helpfully, glancing back at me. When he sees my confusion he pauses to read the message as well before he nods, “Yeah, that’s like, 15ish hours. And 20 d means doboshes, so he’s been in there for about 20 minutes.” 

“Oh.” I blink in surprise, “Thanks. Picked up on some Altean vocab, huh?”

Lance nods proudly, lacing his hands behind his head as we walk out of the medbay, “Uh, yeah, I wasn’t born yester-quintant!” 

I give him a deadpan look, “Now you’re just showing off.” 

Lance shrugs a little, “What can I say, I’ve got a lot to show off, know what I’m sayin’?” He flexes his arms and moves to do so in another position, I gently smack his arms to get him to stop. 

“You’ve got  _ something _ , that’s for sure.” I grumble playfully. 

We’re not the only ones who thought of lunch, as Hunk and Pidge are already inside the kitchen when we get there with food goo at hand. 

“-Nothing! Absolutely nothing useful, all that time I spent making algorithms, completely  _ wasted! _ ” Pidge yells with her hands over her head, and as we walk in she whips towards us, completely red in the face, but I think our presence calms her down as the color drains when she takes some deep breaths. 

“... Doing alright there, Pidge?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow, moving to lean on the counter with his arms crossed, I move to the side to get us some bowls to fill with goo. 

_ “Yeah.”  _ Pidge grumbles halfheartedly, glancing over at me and then letting out a deep sigh, “I just finished looking at the decrypted data from the Blade of Marmora’s outpost and it didn’t have any information on Matt or my dad.” 

I frown, turning towards her as I slide a bowl towards Lance on the counter, “That sucks. I’m sorry.” 

Pidge lets out a deep sigh, her eyebrows set as she flickers her gaze off to the side, “It’s alright.” She raises her head, her eyebrows already set in stone, “Maybe their leader can share some more data with me. What was his name?”

“Kolivan.” I answer helpfully. 

“Koh-lee-vohn?” Hunk echoes, his eyebrow raised before he grins sheepishly, “Man, these Galra guys have such weird names. Sendak. Zarkon. Kolivan.”

“Haxus.” I continue, counting on my fingers, “Myzax.”

“Was Myzax a Galra, though?” Pidge asks with a raised eyebrow, “Shiro just said it was another gladiator in the arena.”

I nod, shrugging a little and gesturing towards her with my spoon, “... Alright, I’ll give you that.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Lance leans his hip on the counter as he spoons some goo into his mouth, waving a finger, “I don’t think we’ve met any lady Galra yet.”

I snort, raising an eyebrow, “Please, I beg you, don’t tell me that if Zarkon had tits you’d hit on him.”

Lance immediately makes a dry heaving sound, whipping his head to look at me with a dirty look as Pidge snickers, “Oh yeah, wow, can you imagine? That’d be a sight to see. We’d end his reign of terror just by sicking Lance on him with nothing but cheesy one liners.”

“Come  _ on, guys! _ ” Lance laments, his face blooms pink as he crosses his arms, “You’re killin’ me here.”

“We’re just teasing.” I joke, elbowing him in the side before I rest a chin in my hand, “That’s actually a good point though. Have we only met male Galra? Or are we just expecting the Galra to be binary presenting?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should look through Sendak’s memories and try and glean his proper pronouns.” Pidge jokes and I immediately laugh so hard I choke on goo, it comes out of my nose and I make a noise of disgust, but that just makes it  _ worse.  _ The others immediately roar in laughter as I stumble for some sort of napkin, I can smell and taste nothing but goo on a level far more intimate than I ever wanted as the door opens. I turn with food goo hanging from my face towards Allura as she looks at us with incredulous, wide eyes at this collection of laughing idiots. 

_ “Hey Allura.”  _ I wheeze in an attempt to sound sarcastically seductive but it just makes my voice tremble in what I imagine Gollum would sound like, it only makes the others laugh harder. I cough and wipe my face of goo as Allura covers her mouth to disguise a laugh, I can only imagine the sort of scene she must have walked in on from her perspective.

“... I see that you’re enjoying your lunch?” She asks with a grin, her hands moving to braid her hair down her back as she walks fully into the room. 

“Oh!  _ Oh _ that was good. Yeah, this is great.” Hunk wipes tears of laughter from his eyes as he recovers. 

“Actually, Allura, maybe you can answer our question.” Pidge is still grinning where she sits on the countertop, “So, what do Galra genders look like? Are they dimorphic?” 

Allura shrugs, “Not quite, it’s more of a spectrum with approximately three sides. Why do you ask?”  

“We were wondering if any of the Galra we’ve met so far are actually all guys or if we were just stereotyping them to be based on our own gender perceptions.” I answer with a cough, my nose burns with the smell of food goo. 

Allura nods in understanding, “As far as I’m aware of, they were what Galra society would consider male presenting, yes.”

“Okay, so in light of this,” I jut a thumb in Lance’s direction, “What Lance wanted to know is what female presenting Galra look like. Because. You know. Reasons.”

“I did  _ not ask that! _ ” Lance huffs indignantly, a bright red blush burning across his face as he crosses his arms with an embarrassed aside, “I was just curious is all! For science and all that mumbo-jumbo you were just saying.”

Allura taps her lips thoughtfully for a moment before her ears perk, “Well, from what I remember, for the most part in utmost generalization, Galra women typically are stronger, they have cuter, fluffier ears  _ I _ personally think, and grow hair on their head like we do, but also down their back like a lion’s mane.”

I glance over at Pidge and wolf whistle, “Oh,  _ hot _ .” She reaches out and punches me in the arm, I can’t help but snicker in laughter. 

“I… suppose?” Allura says with a confused tone and a raised eyebrow, “I’m sure on some planets where the climate is colder it’s useful to have fur.” 

Lance shakes his head, “No no no, what he means is  _ hot~ _ ” Lance reaches out and lays a finger on Allura’s shoulder, drawing his hand away with a sizzling noise. “You know how it is.” 

Allura blinks with absolute confusion before I wave him off, “Colloquial slang, ignore him.” 

Lance shoots me a hard glare as Allura blinks, “... Alright.” She smiles at us sheepishly before she moves aside to a cupboard on the far wall, “Coran is working on the teludav and asked for some scaultrite dust. Hunk, would you show me the mix you used to make the makeshift scaultrite lenses?”

“Uh, yeah, right here!” Hunk moves beside her and points out the box on the top shelf, walking to the other side of the kitchen a bit a ways from us.

As soon as Allura turns away Lance whirls on me with a harsh whisper, “ _ Hey _ , would you quit harshing my vibe?”

I raise an eyebrow and speak with genuine apology, “Oh, sorry. It just gets weird being in the same room when you’re hitting on her, man, I don’t mean anything by it.”

Lance huffs, crossing his arms with a deep pout as I spoon some more goo in my mouth, “What so I’m not allowed to hit on Allura but you’re allowed to hit on Keith around  _ us _ ? Think of the children!” He waves a hand towards Pidge, who immediately throws her spoon at him as I choke again and slam my spoon in my bowl. Hunk, upon hearing my reaction, immediately laughs with a cry, “Oh no, not again!” 

I shoot him a playful glare as I recollect myself, taking a breath before I fix Lance with a sharp look, speaking much louder than the hushed whispers we were just speaking in, “What the hell? When have I  _ ever  _ hit on Keith?” 

“Well, it’s not nearly as obvious as Lance is, but it’s still… you know… pretty gay.” Pidge answers, her chin resting on her knee as she swings her legs on top of the counter. 

I narrow my eyes, “Give me an example, I’ve  _ never  _ hit on him.” 

Hunk and Allura both look at each other and make a matching expression I can’t quite read as they join our discussion; Hunk taps his lips for a moment, making a face and as he talks, “Well uh… I don’t remember anything in particular… Okay, actually, in all fairness it’s not like,  _ hitting on  _ him like Lance does, you guys just have all sorts of…  _ tension. _ ” Hunk looks over at Pidge to corroborate his statement with a pleading look. 

Pidge taps her lips in thought for a moment, “Well, at his birthday party you guys were being so fucking awkward, making  _ eyes  _ at each other and stuff, and then when you tugged him into the pool… Yeah.” 

Hunk gasps, “Okay this might seem kind of bad but you know the other day when you were telling us all about your dreams and then you and Keith had this really intense moment where you went  _ “make me”  _ and we all lost our minds?” 

I choke on air as Pidge snickers in agreement a hand over her mouth as she lets out a breath, “The sexual tension was so tangible I could reach out and touch it to become an allosexual.” 

Hunk raises an eyebrow, “You’re asexual?” 

Pidge nods at him with an open expression. “Ah, cool.” Hunk answers plaintively with a matching shrug.

Allura smiles at her with a jovial, genuinely warm expression, “Thank you for sharing with us, Pidge.” Pidge merely shrugs with a bounce of her shoulders.

“Wait a minute, can we go back to that real quick?” Lance holds up a hand sheepishly, “What’s allosexual?”

“I believe it’s someone who experiences sexual attraction.” Allura replies with a thoughtful expression, moving to sit on the countertop as well and abandoning any attempt of doing anything productive by setting the box of scaultrite dust aside, “As someone who is asexual does not.”

“OH, okay cool, thanks.” Lance says with a nod, his shoulders slacking as he leans on the countertop.

“So, basically, yeah, in conclusion: you  _ totally  _ hit on Keith.” Pidge says with a fingergun in my direction.

My face is so bright a red that I’m surprised I’m not about to transmute into a tomato, “I’ve never  _ tried  _ to hit on Keith, I’m just a gay mess and say stuff without thinking sometimes! Believe me when I say that if I was  _ trying  _ to hit on Keith, not only would you know, but the results would be  _ much different  _ than what you see now. And besides, Keith doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would even notice if I actually was hitting on him, anyhow. He’s kind of uh…” 

“Socially awkward?” Hunk asks with a sheepish raise of his eyebrow, “Oblivious?” Pidge follows up, Allura flickers her gaze across each of us before she raises a shoulder with a sheepish expression, “Simply not observant?”

Lance groans and rolls his head to the ceiling, “Yeah man, I’ve only got…” Lance pauses and counts on his fingers before he declares, “ _ Six  _ words for you:  _ I say Vol, you say Tron _ .”

I raise an eyebrow for several long seconds before the far away memory sparks back to the present, I can’t help but clap a hand over my mouth with a laugh, “Shit, you’re totally right. That was fucking adorable. But yeah, you nailed it. It’s endearing, but that also means I can’t like… use cheesy pickup lines or anything. Not that I  _ would  _ because  _ I wouldn’t,  _ I’m just speaking in pure hypotheticals here because I  _ don’t hit on Keith. _ ” 

“Sure.” Hunk answers with an expression that reeks of sarcasm, but as he opens his mouth to say something Allura suddenly straightens, her ears perking up before she jumps off the counter, “We just received a message from Olkarion!” 

“Whoa, what?! Is Ryner trying to hail us?!” Pidge jolts in excitement, sliding off the counter as well as Allura heads for the door, “Did they finish cleaning the Galra out of their quadrant?” 

“They must have.” Allura says, turning back to us with a wave of her hand, “Come, let us see what they have to tell us.” 

“I can’t wait to hear from them! Do you think the Olkari made Ryner their leader, since Lubos kinda… you know, was a jerk?” Pidge asks as we rise from the kitchen together, I put the dishes in the wash before I hustle and follow after them to head to the bridge. Internally I’m glad for the distraction away from the settling, icy pit in my stomach, especially now after my thoughts return to Keith. I’m not sure what to think of, no words form, just a general, uneasy feeling of tree roots branching from my stomach and intwining in my ribs. 

“I sure hope so, Ryner seems like a cool person.” Hunk says with a nod, a whimsical smile stretching across his face, “And more importantly, they know how to throw a great party, the food was just…” Hunk touches his lips with a dreamy sigh, “ _ Ah.  _ Yeah, that was awesome.”

Allura touches one of her earrings and speaks, “Shiro, Coran, are you there?” She remains silent for a moment before she speaks again, “The Olkari are hailing us, meet us at the bridge.” She drops her hands after speaking right as we walk into the room. __

When we arrive, Allura takes up her place in the central circle, the pillars rise to meet her palms and with a flick of her wrists a holographic projection rises to the front of the ship. A pinging sound resonates, and I hear the sound of the door opening behind us as an image pops up on the screen. It’s a light green, almost olive room with angular windows looking out over an emerald forest, and standing primarily in its center is Ryner. “Greetings from Olkarion, Paladins.” They say with an amicable smile, their bifocal eyes of lavender and green glimmering in what looks like sunshine. 

“Hey Ryner!” Pidge waves excitedly with a huge smile, “How’s Olkarion?” 

“Repairs and refurbishments have been slow, but as of today we look to be just about finished.” They reply, their hands clasped in their lap as they speak with purpose, “I’ve called to inform you that we have succeeded in driving the Galra out of our solar system. As of today, we are ready to assist you in any coming tides or battles.” 

“That’s marvelous, Ryner, thank you.” Allura says with a bright smile, her hands held over her heart.

“Perfect timing, too.” I jump a little when Shiro sneaks up from behind us, we part so he can make his way to the front, “We have a meeting with a secret underground group of Galra resistance known as the Blade of Marmora set up tomorrow to discuss a plan for taking down Zarkon. Are you able to video conference with us? It’ll be sometime in the next twenty four hours.” 

Ryner nods with a solemn expression, “I will make sure that I am available to take part in your meeting. We are ready to move on your order.” 

“Thank you for all your help.” Shiro says with an appreciative smile, “We’ll be taking the fight to Zarkon in no time with you at our side.” 

“This is our hope.” Ryner replies with a nod, “I am looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow.” Ryner makes a noise I don’t recognize, and with a wave the transmission ends. 

“That’s awesome.” I mutter, turning to look at the others with a slow building grin, “We’re really coming together, huh? We’re so official now, getting  _ allies _ , having  _ meetings _ , scheduling  _ video conferences. _ ” 

“Yeah, can’t say I’m super into all the officially stuff and all, but what I  _ am  _ into is the potential  _ parades! _ ” Lance exclaims, his hands raised up high in excitement, “The party on Olkarion was pretty great, but a parade?  _ So much better. _ ”

“Really?” Pidge asks with a deadpan expression, her gaze zeroed on Lance, “The party was ‘ _ pretty great’ _ ?”

“Uh, yeah, I think you must be thinking of another party,” Hunk says with a hand patting Lance’s shoulder, “Because I remember you were  _ really _ out of it the next morning.”

Lance rolls his eyes and brushes him off with a laugh, “Pfft, come on, it wasn’t  _ that  _ bad, I was just a little tired, that’s all!”

“You threw up.” Pidge curls her nose with a shudder, “ _So much_. I don’t even think Hunk’s gotten _that_ sick before.” 

“Hey, friend-juice is a hell of a thing.” I say with a jesting grin. 

After a moment’s quiet of Lance shooting playful daggers at us Allura turns to Shiro, her hands drop to her sides as the pillars in her circle recede into the floor, “Do you have any plans for the day until tomorrow?”

Shiro shakes his head, his arms crossed as he looks to each of us individually, “Just to rest. We have a long day tomorrow planning a coup, and after that I expect we’ll be taking off running to get it underway.” Shiro pauses, glancing over in my direction, “Do we know how long Keith’s got in the pod?” 

I blink and look down at the computer in my suit for the time before I answer, “He’s been in there for about two hours now, when we stuck him in it said he’d be leaving in fifteen, so… thirteen more hours.”

Allura listens intently for a moment before she nods, “He will probably awaken sometime in the night.” 

Shiro bobs his head for a moment before he speaks again, “Alright. Pidge, Hunk, Will, spend some time with the Lions’ amulets.” He gives Pidge a knowing look with a raised eyebrow, “I’m sure you have plenty of tests to run in order to figure out how Will transmuted quintessence yesterday.” 

“Oh, yes!” Pidge immediately perks in excitement, whirling over to me and then holding out her hand for my stone with grabby fingers.

I smile a little sheepishly, a lump in my throat, “Er… Sorry I can’t. Keith’s got my stone.” 

Pidge pouts and then hangs her head for a moment before she looks up at Shiro, “Well, we can still talk about it and see if I can at least get more in the weeds with our stones.” She gestures between herself and Hunk, “See if this is something unique to the White Lion or not.”

I nod amenably as Shiro’s arms fall to his sides, “Alright.” He declares, “Let’s get it done.” 

We shift to move right as Lance raises a hand, “Uh, Shiro? What should I do?” We pause and glance back at him, and for a moment my heartstrings tug when I see his forlorn expression. 

_ Fuck. I wish we could unlock the secret to getting everyone stones, if for nothing else to help Lance not feel left out of it.  _

“Come with us.” I answer with a wave of my hand, “We’re gonna need your perspective, an extra pair of eyes never hurt anyone.” 

Shiro nods, I can see a slight smile on his lips as he makes a gesture with his head from Lance to us. Lance perks up a little, his lackadaisical smirk returning as he moves to join us, looping his arm around Hunk’s and then my shoulders, “Alright, Operation Rock Investigation is a go. First move?” He cocks an eyebrow at Pidge as we head out of the room and make our way down to the Green Lion’s hanger, leaving Shiro, Allura, and Coran behind. 

“Well, it would be helpful to start off with some basics.” Pidge says enigmatically. We look at her and one another for several minutes, wondering what she’s talking about but she fails to elaborate.

“And… what basics are those?” Hunk asks after a moment, turning down the hall. 

Pidge doesn’t answer, holding up a finger, “We gotta get to my notes first!”

“Pfft, nerd.” Lance teases with a wide grin. Pidge shoots him a glare, which only makes his smirk wider. As we roll into Pidge’s hanger she heads to her table where her lion lays, her eyes are dim and her head lies between her paws in prime, sleeping cat position. 

“Alright, so basics.” Pidge says after a moment, a holographic panel popping up and then opening into a blank page as she looks up at me, “How’re you feeling?”

I give her a deadpan expression, “You kept us in suspense all this time just to ask me how I feel?”

She lets out a sigh of exasperation, “Ugh, I mean… Like, do you feel different than yesterday? More tired? Less tired? Energetic? Like, what’s your mood?”

_ Really? Is this what we’re doing now? _

_ How the hell am I to know what I acted like after the day I’ve had? It feels like everything’s back to normal but it’s not, everything’s changed and everything’s different except it’s not, nothing’s changed at all, I’m just losing my fucking mind for nothing- _

I look at her a bit incredulously before shrugging, “I mean, I dunno, I don’t feel any different. Yesterday after my stone did the thing I just felt tired, and my head was pounding like crazy. Like I ran a marathon without drinking any water, you know? Except I also had a thousand monkeys screeching in my head the whole time. That definitely contributed.”

“And what did it feel like as it was happening?” Pidge asks, typing out words about as fast as I can read them. 

“Uh… Like shit.” She gives me an unamused look and I hold my hands up in surrender, “I don’t know, it was really weird. You ever get your blood drawn before?”

“OH, yeah, oh my crow, I went once with my mom, it was so-” Lance elbows Hunk before he begins to ramble, to which Hunk smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his neck, “Oh, uh. Sorry. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about that.”

I nod, “It felt like that, except ten times more, like… suckage, or whatever. Like, it felt like someone reached into my body and just yanked my energy out, it hurt like a bitch but mostly it was kind of like… I don’t know, like I was a wet paper towel that someone tried to wring out too much, you know?”

“I don’t.” Hunk answers, swallowing audible, “And I don’t ever wanna know.”

“Alright, so now the big question is: what prompted that to happen?” Pidge furrows her eyebrows at her notes, letting out an exasperated sigh, “ _ Ugh _ , I wish we had some sort of data! Like, your vitals or something. Is it possible to quantify the amount of quintessence someone has? There’s gotta be a way, right?

“... Right. We should probably ask Coran.” Hunk stands up with a dramatic groan, “ _ Fine, I’ll  _ go do it… and stop by the kitchen for snacks on the way back…”

“Oh, I’m coming, too!” Lance hops aboard the train quickly, following after Hunk with a pep in his step, “Yeah, super important errand here,  _ vamonos! _ ”

“Guys, we literally like, an hour ago!” Pidge calls but they don’t listen, they simply turn and make vague gestures. As they walk out of the room Pidge raises an eyebrow over at me, “So Lance’s feeling perky all of a sudden.” 

Against my will my thoughts retrace back when I was sitting on the floor of the infirm sobbing with Lance rubbing my shoulders. “I’m sure he’s just relieved, you know? It got pretty intense earlier.” I mutter sheepishly, leaning on Pidge’s work table while tapping my fingers against the metal surface. After a few moment’s quiet I turn and look over at Pidge’s expression, her eyes are far away and her face is muted. 

“How’re  _ you _ doing?” Pidge gives me a deadpan look and I wave a hand, “No no, I’m being serious.” Pidge shrugs without a word, but she as she looks at her holographic screen for a long moment I can see something on the tip of her tongue, she keeps glancing to the side with a pensive expression. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.” I venture. She looks back at and I raise an eyebrow, tilting my head to give her my best understanding and approachable expression.

She lets out a sigh after a moment and twists, popping up and sitting on the desk with swinging legs before she speaks, “Will, how did you know you were… you know, you?”

I blink at her in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Like…” Pidge waves her hands with furrowed eyebrows, letting out a hard sigh before she glances over at me, “How did you know you were trans?”

_ Oh. Well, this is a completely new line of thought.  _ I blink for several seconds, looking off to the side as I try to formulate sentences, “Uh… Geez, I don’t know. I guess it started after I hit puberty and sex started to be a topic, I was like… thirteen, fourteen? I hated the idea of it so I just thought I was ace, until I saw this movie. Oh man, this is gonna sound so dumb, you know that one scene in  _ Juvenile  _ where Jesse and Turner just got back together and they go to the shed and fuck?”

Pidge blinks at me stupidly before she flushes pink, “Uh, yeah, but I wasn’t supposed to. When I was eleven Matt was watching it with a friend and my parents told me I couldn’t see it but I hid in the air vent and watched it from there anyway.”

I blink in surprise, “Oh. Right, I forgot age limits on movies are a thing.” I wave a hand with a blush, “Erm, yeah, so, anyway I saw that scene and it made me realize that it wasn’t  _ sex  _ I was averse to, but having sex with like… ya know.” I make a vague gesture below the belt as a red blossom blooms across my face, “It’s not like that for everyone, though. I’m just lucky that my orientation lined up with my body dysphoria and that helped me find my gender identity, too, you know? It’s all tied up together for me but it’s not like that for everyone, rarely is, actually.” I chew on the inside of my cheek thoughtfully for a moment before letting out a sigh, looking over at Pidge’s pensive expression after a time, “If you’re looking to me for insight or something, I don’t think I’ll be able to help at all because it’s really on an individual level. Especially ‘cause my being gay and being a guy are really tied up together.”

“Oh.” Pidge frowns, moving to hug her knees to her chest.

I watch her for a long moment with a soft expression before I press gently, “Why do you ask?”

Pidge lets out a long drawn out sigh, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “I don’t know, I… I was out at home for like, a year, and it was nice, you know? But then I purposefully made myself look like before to sneak into the Garrison program and not get caught and that was  _ horrible _ .” She pauses with a visible lump in her throat, her eyebrows furrowing before she lets out another deep sigh, “So I thought being around you guys, going back to how things were… I thought it would help me feel normal again, you know? But I dunno, sometimes I feel just as weird as before.”

I raise an eyebrow, tilting my head to look at her with more seriousness, “What do you mean?”

Pidge sighs and throws her hands in the air, “I don’t know! I don’t really care how I dress or anything, but I wish I could come across that way. Like, I just wanna dress how I want and be perceived the way I want without having to put effort into it.” 

I frown a little, “Have people been misgendering you?”

“No.” Pidge pushes her glasses up her nose with a rough shove, “No, everyone’s been great with pronouns and stuff, no one has slipped up even once… I don’t know. I’m worried that I don’t…” She bites her lip, her eyebrows furrowing as her voice grows smaller, “I feel like people calling me ‘she’ means that I need to be like Allura. Like, she’s a _she_ , you know?” Pidge suddenly shakes her head and lets out a hard sigh, “I don’t know, I just feel like there’s a lot of expectations of what I need to be like in order to… be who I wanna be and it’s all messing up in my head.” 

I blink in surprise, moving to sit next to her on the workbench, “I had no idea you felt that way.”

Pidge sighs, resting her hands behind her as she looks up at the glass wall beyond her lion, peering out at empty, black space, “I don’t know. I’m a concrete data person, you know? This thing of like…  _ intangibles _ and stuff is just not my thing. I just wanna know where I fit in but I don’t see a category or whatever to align myself with, and so if I can’t find one… am I just weird?”

I shake my head firmly, “Yeah, you are absolutely  _ not _ weird, Pidge, I promise you that.” She glances over at me with a slight pout and after a moment’s thought I continue in a gentle, amicable tone, “Well, gender’s a spectrum, right? If you’re thinking about she/her and he/him pronouns in a binary way and don’t think they fit, maybe it’s worth thinking about a place beyond.” I glance over at her with a slight smile, “You can still be she and her in hoodies and sneakers. Allura is like… an ultra femme, but that doesn’t detract from your femininity. Gender expression and identity don’t have to match, and one doesn’t detract from the other.” Pidge’s eyebrows furrow slightly, so while biting my lip I continue, “If you feel pressured to join a box that you don’t think you belong in, it’s okay to make your own. That doesn’t make you weird, it just means that you’re you. There’s nothing bad about that.”

Pidge furrows her eyebrows, looking down at her lap for a long time before she speaks again, “Gender’s stupid.” 

I snort, immediately letting out a laugh and nodding in agreement, “Yeah, it sure is.”

Pidge’s eyes widen slightly and after a moment they smile warmly at me, “... Thanks, Will. I figured you would know what to say.”

I scoff, “Oh God, you should  _ not  _ go into conversations with me thinking that, Pidge, I promise you, 99% of the time I know absolutely jack shit.” She rolls her eyes at me, so after a moment I grin, “But sometimes, you know, I get struck by a blue moon, or something.” I tap my temple as if case in point, to which Pidge gives me a look of utter, tired confusion.  

“... Once in a blue moon. The phrase you’re looking for is once in a blue moon.” She says with furrowed eyebrows. 

I grin with a wink in herr direction, “I know what I said.” 

Pidge groans and plants her hands on her face to muffle it, “You’re like the worst combination between Lance and Keith that I’ve ever seen.”

I blink in surprise, “Whatcha mean?” 

She holds out her hands to the side and then moves them back and forth as if gesturing to two things, “Dumb and dumber squared.” 

I rest a hand on my chest with a gasp, “Wow. Triple burn. I think I can feel it on Lance and Keith’s behalf.” 

Pidge grins, laughing to herself before she relaxes back on her hands, “Pfft, yeah, sure. I don’t think the damage transfer from our stones happens across paladins.”

A slight cold hand touches the pit of my stomach.  _ If only that were a thing, then Keith wouldn’t be in a healing pod right now.  _

I purse my lips and murmur with a distracted tone, “Yeah… Shame.” I can feel Pidge looking over in my direction but I can’t find it in me to meet her gaze. 

“You’ve been kinda quiet. And you get that look.” She gestures to my face with a vague finger wave. I flush a bit and look down at my feet as Pidge murmurs softly, “Is it about what happened at the Blade of Marmora’s base?”

I let out a sigh, shaking my head a little to dislodge any thoughts before they can fully form, “Yeah. It was kinda fucked.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it?” 

I give her a deadpan expression and grumble, “Look me in the eye and tell me that I look like someone who ever wants to talk about their feelings.”

Pidge snickers at this, brightly smiling before she waves her hands at me, “Alright. Whatever you need, man.”

We’re comfortably quiet for a few beats right as Hunk and Lance return, loud and jovial as they crash into the hanger. 

“Alright, so Coran said that quintessence has a bunch of forms, like liquid and gas and stuff,” Lance begins getting right down to business, his hands rubbing together, “Like at the space base it was all liquidy and then all gassy-” 

Hunk chokes and makes a soft squealing noise, and when Lance looks over at him in confusion he bursts into laughter, “Hehe,  _ gassy _ .” 

Lance gives him a tired look before he continues, “ _ So _ he said it’s kind of a guessing game, it depends on how much  _ life essence  _ something has, which is  _ hard to quantify because that ranges from thing to… _ uh… thing.” He twists an imaginary mustache as he tries to speak with Coran’s voice, a weak imitation but I’ll give it to him, the twisting mustache gesture is unmistakable.

Pidge groans and shakes their head, “Ugh. Great. So there’s no leads there.” She taps her fingertips on the table with a drawn frown, sighing after a moment before she dismisses her hologram, “We just have to find out the conditions that get our stones to activate!”

“Well,” Hunk says, clasping his hands together with a crack of his fingers, “Sounds like we’ve got some experimenting to do. Let’s get to work.” 

… 

Even after breaking for dinner, we’re completely stuck thinking about what the fuck to do to try and get the Green and Yellow Lion’s stones to do anything, no amount of focusing, encouraging, begging, or anything made anything happen, so by the time night falls we’ve long given up, instead hanging around the Green Lion’s hanger and complaining about our lack of progress. At least until Shiro shows up. 

“How’s everything coming in here?” I look up from where I sit with a foot hanging off the workbench at him as he walks in, he looks sweaty and weary, like he was just working out.

Hunk groans loudly in complaint where he lays with his head hanging upside down from Pidge’s work table, “It’s not! We can’t get anything to work!” 

“Maybe we should take a break.” Pidge mumbles from beside him, perched with her feet up on the table with her head in her hands. “Ugh, what time is it anyway?”

“Almost eleven.” Shiro says with his arms crossed, “You should all get to bed, we have a big day tomorrow meeting with the Voltron Alliance’s allies.” 

“Alright, alright,  _ space dad _ , we’re  _ on it. _ ” Lance grumbles as he stretches from his place on the floor rising after a few minutes with his hands over his head. Shiro gives him an exasperated look as Hunk and Pidge collectively giggle.

Immediately my thoughts retrace themselves, and I recall the monitor on Keith’s healing pod. “Is Keith out yet?” I ask, looking at Shiro with a demanding expression while the others collect themselves to head to bed.

Shiro’s gaze flickers across my expression like stones beneath the tide, “... No, he won’t be out until way later tonight.” 

“Or way early in the morning!” Hunk offers helpfully as he moves with Pidge and Lance towards us and through the doorway out of the hanger.

“Alright.” I nod with a glance at the others as we as a collective walk down the hall, “Well, then you know where you’ll find me.”

Shiro frowns a little, “I know you’re worried, but it’s important you get some rest. I have a timer on of when he’ll be up, and when it goes off we’ll be there. You need to get some rest.” 

“Yeah, gotta say, you  _ do _ look kinda tired, man.” Hunk proffers with a raised hand before giving me an apologetic smile, “I mean, in the best way, of course.” 

I grumble with a loose glare thrown at Hunk, “Hey, I thought you were on my side after this morning!” 

Hunk holds his hands up innocently with a sheepish expression, “Ah, I’m sorry, I just call it like I see it.”

I give Hunk a narrow eyed expression before I return my gaze to Shiro’s, “Listen, I know, but I don’t want him to wake up beforehand or something and there be no one around. I don’t care how late it gets, I’m staying there until he’s out.” 

Shiro frowns at me for a long moment before he sighs with resignation, “... I should really know better than to try and argue with you at this point.”

I can’t help but grin cheekily at this as we reach a split in the hall, one towards our rooms and the other towards the infirm, “And  _ that _ , Shiro, is the greatest compliment you ever could’ve given me.  _ Adieu _ , bitches.” I give the collective a salute before I turn on heel and head towards the med bay at a quick pace. 

Now that I’m alone it doesn’t take long for my thoughts to catch up to me, and the day’s events crash over me so violently that for a moment my feet stall on their path to the infirmary.  _ Jesus Christ. What a long day.  _

_ I can’t believe how that meeting went down at the Blade of Marmora’s base. I can’t believe that I returned and only broke down for like, five minutes before everything was fine again, except I don’t think it’s really fine, I just had to break out that pent up anxiety but it still sits at the pit of my stomach, cold and spiked. Keith is Galra. I can’t even begin to comprehend how that can be possible, like, logistically. I wonder just how much Galra he is, it can’t be much since he looks human. Entirely human, actually.  _

_ It’s bound to come out eventually, even if he doesn’t tell them tomorrow before Kolivan comes on board, I just know that it’ll slip, somehow, in some manner, big things like this always do. Except… I don’t know, is it a big deal? I think the others will definitely be shell shocked like I was… am. But I think eventually it won’t matter to us. Except maybe to Allura. Oh, I have not considered how Allura is going to take that. I doubt well, based on past experience. But I mean, it’s Keith, she knows Keith, she’s not gonna suddenly hate him because it turns out he’s Galra, like, he doesn’t even look remotely Galra so it’ll probably be fine. It’ll be fine. Besides, this might just be a thing that happens way later and not now, certainly not now. Right?  _

I walk into the medbay with my thoughts spiraling in a thousand different directions, only for them to be reined in when I see Keith. On the top of the glass of his pod it says  _ ‘APPROX. TIME RELEASE: 4 v’,  _ and remembering what Lance said earlier about v, vargas, mean about an hour.  _ So if it’s eleven now, he’ll be out at around 3am. Marvelous, I can deal with that.   _

Personally, I don’t mind sitting around doing nothing. It only ever bothers me when my thoughts are sickeningly swampy or overwhelming, but on its own I don’t find myself getting bored. I just stare off into space and enjoy the quiet, but watching Keith’s face, peaceful and undisturbed, I’m filled with the opposite. 

_ I haven’t thought about this on purpose because I’m afraid of what it means, but… what Kolivan said about the last part of the test, the guy’s suit reflecting Keith’s greatest hopes and fears, and then seeing Shiro and then me appear before him and say those things… It makes me wonder what that means for what I saw. There must’ve been some mistake if I was there, because there’s no way I’m Keith’s greatest anything, so maybe they were just using the people they saw to manipulate him based on our interactions. But… I don’t know.  _ I sit down on the stairs opposite of Keith’s pod and look up at him, examining his face, the way his black hair curls at the base of his jaw.  _ It hurt to watch. It goes beyond just my sheer protectiveness, I feel extremely disquieted about the way that that Will treated him, touched him. It looked so… intimate. It makes me wonder if the Blade thought we were together or something, but that’s also  _ **_extremely_ ** _ presumptuous of me to think that that’s how to read the situation. Except isn’t it?  _

_ I would’ve given anything to have actually been in that room and held his face like that, to see him looking at me that way, and that’s terrifying. I know we’re in this weird bit of our friendship that we both know we like each other, I’m still kind of coming to terms with that but it’s still weird as hell. I feel like we’re dancing around something, a Tiananmen Square in the room where we know it happened but we just don’t talk about it. Now, seeing that, specifically the way he reacted… Even after all that’s happened, all the stupid shit I’ve done and said, is it ridiculous to hope that maybe he might… _

_ I shouldn’t be thinking about this. But I am. Fucking hell. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get over this. Even after all that, learning he’s a Galra… I don’t think I know as much about him as I think I did. I don’t know what it was like for him growing up, where he’s from, why he went to the Garrison, how he got thrown out, what he did after he got thrown out, how he met Shiro, what happened to his parents… Important things, things I should know, but don’t. Do I really even know him at all? Or have I just learned enough to latch meaning onto because I’m desperate for some affection, even if it’s fabricated? Is it fabricated? It’s got to be, otherwise why does he like me? What the hell have I got to offer him except more emotional baggage than he already has, he’s definitely chock full based on recent events. Maybe we just need to fuck and get it all over with. Maybe we’re just teenagers in space fighting a war against a thousand year old tyrant and are so stressed and tired that we just start making shit up.  _

_ Maybe I’m just coming up with more excuses to distance myself from him because of how scared I am about what could happen if I were to actually set my mind on it and pursue him. Like I said at lunch, it would all be different if I actually said yeah, I’m going to flirt with Keith and get him interested in me. But I can’t ever let him close to me. He’d learn about who I really am, what happened to me and what I did to Damien, what he did to me. But even despite that, no matter how hard I say no, I can’t, I won’t, I keep dredging up more reasons to stay. This reminds me of a song.  _

I hear the lyrics in my head.  _ “You deserve forever, not a boy looking for better, but as long as you’re still here, I will try and keep you near.”  _

_ I can’t be doing that. Not with all that’s going on. Especially now learning that he’s Galra. I can only imagine how that happened, but based on what I know about the Galra I can’t imagine it being pretty. Maybe some sick Galra forced themselves on his parent, grandparent, and it’s that hurt that spawned him.  _

This thought startles me, I awaken from the deep mull I found myself in and shudder in disbelief.  _ I can’t believe I would think that. What the fuck. That’s the worst possible conclusion I could’ve drawn, Keith isn’t the result of pain. I should never think something like that. But… I’ve yet to meet a Galra who hasn’t hurt me or the people around me in some manner. I can’t imagine it being some sweet love story.  _

_ Maybe I’m worrying about all the wrong things. Maybe I should fucking worry about ending this war. Getting home, getting these things back to normal. But I can’t help feeling unsettled, this feeling keeps persisting like the events of today was just an unmasking; it feels like Keith’s been lying all this time, but that makes literally no sense. He didn’t know either. But I wouldn’t know, would I? I don’t know him at all. He’s not the person I think I thought he was. Maybe I’ve just been feeding myself what I like to see about him and calling it an in depth understanding of his character. _

I let out a sigh as my head hits the podium in the center of the room, looking at Keith with drooping eyes.  _ Great. Now I’ve gone and made myself sad, again. I always do this. Why can’t everything just be simple? Why can’t I just enjoy something for fucking once? I’m tired of overthinking, I’m tired of being afraid, of the future, of the past, for myself and for everyone else. I’m just… tired. _

_ I’m so tired.  _

… 

I awaken with a gentle jostle of my shoulder. I blink slowly, furrowing my eyebrows as I come to and immediately I start when I see indigo eyes looking at me with confusion. 

“Keith!” I’m awake so startlingly fast it makes my head spin, I sit up and look at him with wide eyes. He’s kneeling in front of me in his flight suit, his expression is concerned and befuddled in the cutest way it makes my heart stutter. Then I see the knife in his hand, and the glowing violet sigil in the onyxian metal. 

“You’re… still in your armor.” He mumbles, looking at me with a slur in his voice like he just got woken up from a deep sleep. 

I blink and look down at my chest before returning my gaze back to him, “Uh… yeah. I didn’t think to change, I guess.”

Keith furrows his eyebrows, the longer he looks at me the more he seems to gain coherency, “What’re you doing here?” Keith asks blinking a little slowly as he persists, “What time is it?”

I tap the wrist of my suit and report, “Uh… 4am.” 

Keith frowns, watching me with a closeted gaze before he murmurs, “You were waiting here for me all this time?”

I feel something hot flood my face as I clear my throat, looking off to the side in embarrassment, “I mean… I was, before I accidentally fell asleep, which I didn’t mean to do but uh… yeah.” I glance back at him and my chest tightens when I see the openness in his expression, his gaze is soft and confused and gentle and it makes my chest hurt. 

_ But I know nothing about you. I’m not sure I even know who you are.  _

I set my jaw and clear my throat, planting my hands on the ground and standing up before holding a hand out to Keith, “Come on, you should get a few hours sleep before Kolivan shows up.” 

Keith watches me with a hooded expression before it closes off, his face morphing into a mask as he reaches up and grabs my forearm, I help him up as he speaks, “I just slept in the pod, I’m not tired.”

I glance at him and then at the pod. “Oh.” I mutter, suppressing a yawn, “Right.” I clear my throat and look down at the floor at my boots.  _ I feel so strange. I shouldn’t feel so strange but I do, I feel so so strange around him now.  _ “So what are you gonna do while you wait?” I venture. 

Keith doesn’t answer for a moment, “Not sure. I’ll think of something.”  _ Vague. Just like everything else you say.  _

_ I can’t stay here. He’s awake now, he isn’t alone, he’s okay, so now it’s time to leave before- _

“Will,” I snap my gaze up to Keith’s as he speaks, and when I do he abruptly stops, looking at me with wide eyes. I raise an eyebrow and watch his expression closely.  _ Why can I never read his facial expressions? What do they mean? Why don’t I know you like I thought I did?  _ He continues after a few silent beats, his voice is cautious and slow, “I… Listen, about what happened at the base-” 

Immediately something in my snaps and I shut down. “It doesn’t matter.” I state, my voice wavers only briefly before I clamp down on it and kick it into a corner. “What matters is that you’re okay. Now, we should…”  _ Why is my voice hitching on the we?  _ “... We ought to focus on the mission.” 

Keith regards me silently, his face completely unreadable,  _ as always.  _

I turn without another word and head back towards my room. 

_ I sounded cold. I sounded upset. I sounded angry, I sounded hurt. I am upset, I am hurt, but I don’t know why or what for. My head’s spinning in all different directions, I feel like when I look at him I should know him after all the time I’ve spent thinking about him but what I learned today is that I don’t; I don’t know him at all. I don’t think I ever did.  _ My stomach rests on ice, my heart’s in a cooler and my thoughts are raging a mile a minute with everything and nothing, a chorus of emotion I can’t even bother to suppress anymore. 

_ I don’t know Keith at all except… He’s a Galra.  _

_ Keith is Galra. _

… 

I don’t know what it was that I dreamed about last night, but what I do know is that when I awaken I’m covered in cold sweat and my hands are numb. I sit up, staring at the opposite wall and right off the bat my thoughts, broken and disorderly, swarm back around me like a colony of gnats.  _ Kolivan is coming to talk about ending the war.  _ I tap the holographic panel next to my bed and see I slept about 4 hours, it’s 8am.  _ Good thing I woke up when I did, I can’t miss this meeting.  _ I’m tired as hell, however; as soon as I’m standing I feel like lead weights cling to my arms and legs, moving is difficult and it makes me feel nauseous.  _ Maybe this is just residual from the quintessence transmutation from the day before yesterday. Fucking hell.  _ I take a shaky breath and try to clear my head as I go about getting ready for the day, albeit it take me a longer time than usual.

When I started towards the dining hall in a daze I didn’t know what to expect from the day save that Kolivan was coming and we were going to discuss how to end the war, but what I didn’t expect is what I’d stumble upon when I walked through the door. 

_ “-A quiznaking Galra, all this time?!”  _

I freeze in the open doorway. Keith is standing at the head of the table with his arms crossed and his head slightly bowed with his gaze off to the side, Shiro standing next to him. Collected around the table is the entire ship, staring at him with varying expressions of shock and wide, disbelieving eyes. 

_ Oh.  _

_ Oh no.  _

The silence in the room is deafening, but it’s broken only a few seconds by Hunk scoffing, “Pfft, no way, you’ve gotta be joking!” He looks between Shiro’s expression and then Keith’s, one, twice, thrice, before he mutters, “Oh. You’re being serious.”

“Okay, so what?” Lance draws my attention where he stands to my left, leaning on the table with crossed arms. He looks at the rest of us with a raised eyebrow before he shrugs, “He’s still Keith. Annoying mullet and all. Why’s it matter if we suddenly find out he’s Galra? He’s not suddenly a different person.”

_ He’s not suddenly a different person because he’s Galra. _

_ But who is that person to begin with? _

“How can he be part Galra?” Pidge is perched on her chair with an entirely perplexed expression, their eyebrows furrowed in thought before they look over to Coran and Allura, “Is it possible that the Galra may have come to Earth at some point?”

Coran twists his mustache with a troubled expression, “Well, based on the planets that we’ve seen that have been Galra occupied, I suspect that you would know if the Galra ever came to Earth. It wouldn’t be subtle.” He looks off into some unseen distance as he sighs, “They never were masters of subterfuge.”

Allura’s voice is hard as ice, “There has been a  _ Galra  _ on this ship,  _ all this time,  _ and  _ he _ never thought to mention it?” Something about the way that she says  _ he _ ,  _ a Galra _ , brings me out of my head and the ice that clenches around my stomach tightens and travels to my chest. I’m reeling, the morning has only just started and I’m mentally stumbling through it.  _ This is just as bad as waking up to those surprise drills Shiro has a penchant for. I’m too tired to be coherent, even less so to be witnessing, helping, this situation. _

Keith doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move, he stands like a worn statue in a graveyard. “He didn’t know either.” Shiro answers on his behalf, his eyebrows furrowed as he holds out his hands in a conciliatory tone, “It’s been… a bit of a shock.”

“I mean, speak for yourself.” Lance says with another shrug but he doesn’t elaborate. He’s got his eyes glued to Allura, and not in the usual, dreamy, heterosexual manner that he typically does. This time he looks like he’s searching for something, like he’s worried.  _ Who cares if he’s Galra?  _

_ … Do I care?  _

_ I don’t know. I’m still reeling. I think I’m still waking up and this is leaving me with the anxiety and fury and helplessness that I tried to cover up after failing to deal with it yesterday. I wonder if the others even notice if I’m here right now. _

Keith is dead silent throughout this exchange. He’s merely got his eyes to the right hand wall with a masked expression, never changing, always worn.  _ Did he tell them, or did Shiro?  _

“What matters right now is that we’re all okay,” Shiro says with a stern manner, fixing the room with a furrowed gaze, and that’s when his gaze lands on me. He rakes my figure as if searching for something before he looks away again to peer at the others, “Kolivan will be coming soon. Let’s get our heads in the game.” Shiro glances around to each of us, his hands on his waist, “Is everyone ready to do this?”

The room is quiet, but after a moment Hunk raises his hand, “Uh, Will just got here so he’s probably gonna need some breakfast, so after he eats uh… Yeah, other than that, I’m feeling good, everyone else feeling good?” He holds his hands out with a sheepish smile with a gaze sweeping the room, and I balk when the others’ eyes turn to me in the doorway.  _ Well, my presence is known now.  _

“‘Is fine.” I surprise myself at how lackadaisical I sound, shrugging with my arms crossed, “Not hungry. Just came to find everyone.” 

Shiro narrows his eyes in disbelief right as the walls flash, a small alert broadcasting through the Castle walls. Coran taps his wrist, his gloves reveal a small hologram with words in Altean and after a moment he declares, “A pod coming from the base is hailing us.”

Our gazes trail to Allura as she rises from her seat, her palms pressed to the table. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her gaze is as hard as diamonds as she states in a cool voice, “Open the hanger doors and allow them to land.” She turns to each of us and finally her gaze lingers on Keith, standing as still as a statue with his arms still crossed over his chest. She narrows her eyes, the awkwardness in the room is tangible as she turns on heel and heads towards the doorway leading to the hangers.

Immediately we rise, Allura leads the pack as she bursts from the room with almost tangible fire in her wake, a lump forms in my throat. I’m still waking up, but the reality of the situation is sobering. 

_ So, it’s out now. Keith is Galra. Everyone knows. I wonder how it was brought up, did someone see him and ask about what happened now that he’s awake? Was it he who told them or did Shiro do it for him?  _

I’m mentally sluggish, but as we walk I awaken a little more and more so that by the time we get to the hanger I’m fully conscious. Not mentally present yet, but conscious.

In the middle, having just landed, is a black pod, similar to the Altean pods save with small wings on the sides like Galra battle cruisers have. As we approach the doors open and Kolivan steps out, he wears garb similar to what he wore yesterday, save the difference is his mask is gone and I see his face for the first time. 

He has a stern expression with a mouth that rests in a hardened line, a yellow swipe of something rests below his golden eyes and red above his brow like war paint. Those terrifying serpentine pupils and white facial markings accentuate his pronounced brow and wide jaw, and a braid of silver hair falls from the back of his head and curls around his shoulder. With him is Antok, his tail swishes along the floor behind him as his massive feet touch the ground and he still bears his eyeless mask.  _ I can’t tell what’s scarier, seeing those eyes of a snake, or seeing nothing at all. _

As soon as we approach Kolivan’s gaze falls to Allura and he drops to his knees, his voice is different without his mask on but I’d still be able to identify it based on the lilt of his tone, “Princess Allura.” He bows his head, his clawed hands on his knees, Antok immediately does the same. Kolivan doesn’t raise his head as he speaks reverently, “It is good to see the rumors are true that you’re still alive after all of these years.”

Allura stands in a powerful, regal stance before him, her sapphire gaze is stern as she looks down her nose at him, “So is Zarkon. Can we consider you our ally in the fight against him?”

“Yes. But we have little time to discuss this.” Kolivan answers, and as he rises back to his feet his shoulders square as he meets Allura’s gaze, I can’t help but cow at how he stands a full head and almost shoulders taller than her, “I just received word from our spy inside the Galra hierarchy. They have become aware of our presence, so the timetable for our plan has moved up.”

Shiro’s expression is open and charismatic as he looks up at the Blade of Marmora’s leader, “How soon do we need to begin?” Kolivan’s gaze falls to him and I have to suppress my immediate instinct to step in front of his snake-like gaze. 

His words are simple and precise: “Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slamming my fists on the table* ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST  
> Song reference near the end is Gasoline by Troye Sivan ("You deserve forever, not a boy looking for better, but as long as you're still here I will try and keep you near") it is a fire song and when looking at the whole song's lyrics it does shed some light on the convoluted-ness of what's going on in Will's head on a more subconscious level. [As it is with every song I've put in here, if you haven't noticed, they're chosen specifically and for a reason :0) i mean it makes sense, the kid's the king of music nerds!]  
> Stay tuned!


	11. How to Dismantle an Empire: Millennium Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With two incredibly powerful allies in their fight against Zarkon, the Voltron Paladins are ready to take the fight to him, but they've got to come up with a plan first. The Blade of Marmora has a few ideas, but it will take a lot of coordination, effort, and luck to pull off a coup successfully.  
> So it's time to learn lesson number one in taking down an empire: removing a dictator from power.

When we arrive to the bridge, Allura hails Olkarion to bring Ryner in on our discussion. I shift and sit on the arm of my chair in the back with my knee propped on the seat as we collect around Allura’s circle, Hunk sits down in his seat and Pidge stands next to it with her arms crossed as Shiro and Keith stand to the right with Kolivan and Antok. Lance leans his elbows on the back of my chair and when I meet his gaze he gives me a look I can’t quite discern, his eyebrow is raised and his eyes are questioning. I give him a confused expression but he doesn’t have a chance to say anything as a holographic image of Ryner appears on the great screen before us. 

“Greetings, Paladins.” Ryner greets with a wave, their purple and green eyes flicker around the room. 

“Good morning, Ryner.” Shiro says with a charismatic smile, “Glad to see you can join us.” His gaze points to the side where Kolivan and Antok stand side by side looking up at the Olkari leader, “This is Antok and Kolivan, leader of the Blade of Marmora.” Shiro looks over to the pair as he holds a hand towards the hologram, “This is Ryner, leader of the Olkari.”

Ryner turns to the pair and nods in a slow, reverent manner, “It is good to meet you.”

Kolivan nods in kind, respectful and polite, “The pleasure is mine. I am glad to see that the Olkari have been freed from Zarkon’s grasp. ”

“As are we.” Ryner replies diplomatically. 

Kolivan nods with a grunt, turning to us as he immediately gets down to business relaying the Blade of Marmora’s plans, “The Blade of Marmora has a great many spies scattered across the Empire, granting us eyes and ears almost everywhere. This morning, our spy in the Galra hierarchy, Thace, brought to our attention that Zarkon is becoming aware of our presence and has begun searching for us among his ranks. We have a plan on how to dethrone him, however with this turn of events, if we do not act soon we will miss the opportunity.”

“And what opportunity is that?” Allura asks with furrowed eyebrows, her arms crossed over her chest with a stoic expression.  _ She looks upset. Incredibly so. This news about Keith must have rattled her more than I thought it would. In addition to the fact that Kolivan and Antok are the first Galra invited to the Castle’s bridge in a thousand years, she must be incredibly on edge. I get it. I really do. My stomach is twisting up just thinking about the last time there was a Galra here, in this place.  _ My side hurts just as the mere mention, I find my hand resting over the scar on my side _. Fucking hell. Not now.  _

“The opportunity to end this war with as little bloodshed as possible.” Kolivan answers. He raises a hand and brandishes what looks like a small chip, barely the size of his claws, and he hands it to Allura as he speaks, “This contains detailed schematics of Zarkon’s ship, as well as other important information that we have gathered over the years. If it may be displayed?”  _ He sure is a polite guy. For a Galra.  _

Allura looks at him and then at the chip before she takes it at hand with cautious fingers and an equally cautious gaze. She takes a step back away from her circle and with a tap of the metal on her wrists the circle begins to rise, morphing into what looks like a massive pedestal that just reaches beneath my knee, it’s large enough that everyone in this room could fit inside, which is a lot considering… well, Antok. Once it stills Allura taps the side and a massive hologram appears like one of those spinning globes in the old Natural History Museum. She inserts the chip, and after a moment a soft  _ thoom  _ sounds through the room as a violet figure of Zarkon’s command vessel comes to life in the center of the room, but this one is far more detailed than the one we have from when we used our deep space scanners to find Allura. I can see detailed measurements, room labels, power linings and distributions… all together a  _ very helpful diagram. _

_ Now if only it was in English.  _

“Our plan is to take Zarkon’s vessel, with Zarkon upon it, completely out of the picture.” Kolivan touches a holographic piece of the diagram and shifts it to another image, one of a completely different space base. This one looks octangular with three levels, surrounded completely by what look like little specs that I realize upon closer inspection are drones. “This is Beta Traz, the highest secured facility in the galaxy. It was built specifically for one person, a genius engineer named Slav.”

“Oh!” Pidge gasps, perking up visibly, “That’s the guy who made the gravity generator that folds space time!”

Kolivan nods, “He is brilliant, if eccentric. He worked with the Blade of Marmora for many years until about a year ago he was captured and taken here. We’ve been constructing a plan to break him out without blowing our cover, but it is proving to be more complicated than expected, and with recent events we no longer have the luxury of a clean prison break.”

“Why do you need him?” Shiro asks, his arms crossed as he examines the prison with a pensive gaze. 

“He has the original design plans for the gravity generator that creates space time folds that is needed to hide a construct. He also has the capability and knowledge of constructing an ancient device known as a teludav.” Kolivan answers simply, his gaze is unreadable as it examines the facility closely with an intimate eye. 

Lance blows a raspberry beside me, “Wait, the teludav? You mean like the one we have on the Castle?”

Kolivan blinks in surprise, which is strange to say the least as he is an all together expressionless person, “You have a teludav aboard this vessel? How is that possible?”

Allura crosses her arms with a firm set in her brow, visibly bristling, “What is it that you need a teludav for?”  _ She seems much more defensive all of a sudden…  _

_ Oh. Right. The reason why there’s a teludav on board is a big Altean secret. Totally forgot about that. _

Kolivan regards Allura for a long moment without a word before he continues, swiping his hand to the left to bring the image back to Zarkon’s command ship, “If it works as we expect it to, then it will be able to transport Zarkon across the galaxy into non-Galra occupied space. Only problem is, with Zarkon moving his command ship in search of Voltron there is no stable place to keep it.”

“Then we bring Zarkon to us.” Shiro says with a set expression, “I can lure him to the teludav’s position in the Black Lion.”

Immediately I tense, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows, “Are you sure you can do that? Or that you  _ should _ ?” 

Shiro gives me a gentle look that placates the fear in my heart, “It’ll just be used as bait. Now that I have a better connection with the Black Lion, I’ll be able to fend him off if he tries to seize control. And, it won’t be long until him and his ship is taken out of the picture.”

“What would that accomplish?” Allura interrupts with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, “His ship can still fly.” 

Kolivan nods, “We hope it will give us enough time to submit Zarkon’s supporters and allow for another leader to come to place. To grant us more time, Thace has Zarkon’s ship that would infect the command center’s power systems that would shut down all power for days, hopefully weeks. The resources upon the ship are limited. Without supply ships coming in and out, they would be severely weakened by the time they could return, if at all. This will also allow for Zarkon’s ship to be defenseless to any outside attacks, weakening it to damage, as well as allowing for it to be transported through the teludav without interference.”

“That seems like a lot of if’s and ‘we hope’s.” I grumble under my breath, but after a moment I straighten with furrowed eyebrows as I speak louder, “Sounds to me like your plan is just to throw Zarkon across the universe as hard as possible and then hope you can obtain power before he returns. That hardly seems like a permanent solution.” 

Shiro holds up a hand, his eyebrows furrowed as he speaks with a voice that reflects his expression, deep in thought, “Not unless Voltron went through the wormhole with them.” He speaks with a deliberate voice, his gaze raking across Zarkon’s command vessel, “With his ship disabled, and across the galaxy with no opportunity for backup, we could destroy it from there, and then wormhole back once the deed is done. He’d be outgunned, defenseless, and vulnerable.” 

The room is quiet for a moment as we mull it over, after a beat Allura speaks with a voice made of marble, “That assumes that your Galra infiltrator will be able to manage such a feat remotely.”

“It would not be remote.” Kolivan answers with the same tone of voice, his serpentine gaze flickers across Zarkon’s ship without a change in expression. 

Shiro frowns, looking over at Kolivan with a concerned expression, “Would Thace be able to get out of the ship in time?” 

“Perhaps.” Kolivan says in a hard edge to his voice, one that I cannot tell if it is pained or bristled, “He knows the risks, and he wouldn’t have made the commitment if he were not willing and able to pay any necessary price.”  _ Jesus Christ, that’s cold.  _

_ Maybe it is a universal thing that Galra don’t care about life, their own or others.  _

_ That must be such a dull, sad existence. What do they have to live for if their life is so easily abandonable? _

_ Or maybe this is what a millennium of war has trained them for. Maybe they’re just that desperate for a new era for the Galra. Maybe this is just the product of that upbringing.  _

This quells me a little, and removes some of the icy pain clenching my stomach. 

“This may be feasible, but constructing a device capable of jumping a ship of that size will in time.” Ryner speaks from their hologram, their spindly hands stay clasped in their lap as they speak, “If provided with a schematic, my people would be able to make one, but… anything to transport a ship of that size will require a great deal of resources.”

Coran steps up to the podium, his arms held behind his back as he looks solely on Allura, “I’m afraid I haven’t the knowledge necessary to design a teludav of that size. I can blueprint the ring mainframe and ensure the systems are installed correctly, but the actual design of a teludav that is able to generate a wormhole of that size, capable of travelling across such distances… That is beyond my expertise.”

“Which is why we need Slav.” Kolivan swipes his hand to the side to show Beta Traz, his clawed finger pointing at its core, “He helped us to come up with this plan, but he was captured before the final draft of the teludav was completed, and he is the only one with the knowledge on how to create a gravity generator to cloak the teludav from Zarkon and his forces.”

“So our first priority is to break Slav out.” Shiro says with a stern nod. “Kolivan, do you already have a plan in place?”

Kolivan shakes his head, “The base appears impenetrable, we simply do not have the mobility to get within.” He makes a motion with his hand to enlarge the image of Beta Traz, particularly on the side where it’s confirmed the floating dots are in fact little drones as he speaks, “It’s surrounded on all sides by thousands of monitor drones, no place is left with a blind spot; and there’s only one entrance, here.” He zooms in on the seams of a hanger on the front of the octagonal base. “And because it is impossible to get inside without being seen, our intel on the actual base’s structure is next to none.”

Pidge pushes her glasses up her nose, “Oh, hold on, I have an idea.” Pidge glances over at Lance with an excited light in her eyes, “Your lion’s sonic beam can scan the base from afar, and act like a solar flare! You can disable the drones long enough for us to get inside, then from there you can get a scan of the base and send it to us remotely. Using that data I can get you in the Blue Lion in, and then Slav out.”

“That may work.” Kolivan says, his golden gaze zeroing in on Pidge, “A prison such as this has been constructed in the past, and based on those past blueprints it is likely that Beta Traz will have different types of defenses throughout the facility. You may only have access to certain systems in certain locations.” 

Shiro smiles, striding over to Pidge and setting his hand on her shoulder, “If anyone can handle it, I have no doubt that you can.” Pidge’s eyes widen and after a moment she beams up at him with a smile that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Shiro looks up at the rest of us as he lets his hand drop, “I’ll go with Pidge and Lance to break Slav out, but while this is happening we need to start gathering the necessary materials in order to make the teludav.”

Hunk groans quietly, “Aww, man, the teludav again? Does that mean we need more scaultrite?”

Allura nods, and with a wave of her hand and a few taps upon a holographic keyboard an image appears of what looks like a blueprint of the teludav, I recognize the cylindrical shape and the dish in the back. “That is just one of the many things we’ll need.” 

Ryner speaks from their holographic video at the front of the ship, “The Olkari can craft the outer ring for this device as Coran said, of the size necessary to allow Zarkon’s ship to pass through, however, will take several quintants. In addition, if this teludav requires materials beyond what we are able to make with native metals on Olkarion, then those will need to be provided.”

Hunk cocks an eyebrow with a gaze sliding to each of us in turn, a hopeful smile stretching across his features, “Am I uh… Am I sensing a trip back to the space mall, here?” 

Coran shakes his head, “I’m afraid not.” Hunk hangs his head with a pout as Coran continues to speak with his arms behind his back, “This is going to take a  _ lot  _ more scaultrite than we can find in any Unilu shop.”

“So where  _ do  _ we get it from?” Pidge asks with a raised eyebrow, her head tilted to the side as she pushes her glasses up her nose. 

Coran smiles in excitement, “Why, from a Weblum, of course!” 

We all blink stupidly for a solid second before Allura speaks, “The other important piece of the teludav is another Balmeran crystal.” She gesturing to the back of the holographic teludav’s radial dish in the back, “It will have to be beyond a battle cruiser class,  _ far  _ beyond to power a teludav of this size. Hopefully, the Balmera we located before will have one of that caliber available. And depending on the materials Slav needs for his gravity generator, this list may need to change.” 

“So this means that in order to get this done as quickly as possible, we’re going to have to split up.” Coran declares, his hands now moving to rest on his hips with a serious expression. “We will all have a task to do.”

Shiro nods in agreement, “Alright. Let’s-”

“Oh, oh!” Hunk raises his hand, jumping on his heels in excitement, “Can I go to the Balmera for the crystal? ‘Cause my uh… my lion is strong. And can carry a big crystal. You know. Armor claws?” He smiles hopefully, looking at Shiro with a pleading gaze.

Coran, to my surprise, is the one who shakes his head, “I’m sorry Hunk, but your lion would be best in order to extract the scaultrite from the Weblum. It won’t be easy; it’s going to take some heavy lifting, and the thick armor may be helpful should you encounter any complications.” Hunk swallows audibly.

Shiro nods in agreement with Coran and gestures towards Hunk, “I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone, so take Keith with you.”

Hunk frowns and waves his hands, “Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, I don’t know how to get the scaultrite! I don’t even know what a Weblum is!” 

Coran blinks in absolute surprise for a solid beat, “It’s… Goodness, where have you been been, under a globinheffer? I tell you what, I made an instructional video back in my day, I’ll send the file to you for the journey. It has comprehensive explanations and detailed illustrations that can show you step by step how it’s done!” Hunk’s eyes widen in anxiety as Coran continues with a smoothed over tone, turning his back to head to the front of the ship, “I’ll see if I can’t locate any dead planets nearby. That’ll be a sure sign of its presence!” 

“... Aw, man.” Hunk mumbles under his breath, “Something tells me this is gonna be just like going to the Balmera.” 

Coran calls over his shoulder from the front, “Well, you’re not wrong!” 

Hunk blinks at him stupidly as Shiro turns about, “While you two get the scaultrite, Coran, you should head to Olkarion to help Ryner and their people begin construction on the outer frame for the teludav.” Coran turns back towards Shiro and gives him a brisk nod in agreement before he continues typing and swiping at his station.

Ryner’s holographic image speaks at the front, “We will begin preparations immediately for your arrival, Coran.”

They turn away and speak off camera as Shiro turns to Allura and I, “And while we’re all doing that, Princess, you and Will will take the Castle to the Balmera to get the crystal we need.”

Allura solemnly nods as Hunk pouts, “Aww, man! Why does Will get to go to the Balmera? His lion’s tough too, why can’t he go get the scaultrite?” 

I merely blink at him as Shiro answers in a conciliatory tone, “We all have our part to do, Hunk.”  _ I’m sure he just wants to see Shay. I don’t blame him, but I’m actually kinda glad I’m not going on their missions. I’d be stressed about doing something wrong the whole time. They’re much better trained for this than I am, I’m much better suited to… well, sit around with Allura while we go get a crystal from the Balmera. I like that we’re split up this way, we all are paired so no one goes out alone. Except for Coran. Sorry Coran. But fortunately he is just headed on a one way trip to Olkarion. _

“I found a collection of dead planets! Unfortunately it’s a few galaxies away, so you will have to take a wormhole to get there in a timely manner, and hopefully the Weblum will be there by the time you arrive.” 

“Within the drive I gave you, you will find coordinates to Beta Traz.” Kolivan says with his arms behind his back, “It is a dozen quintant’s flight from here.”

Shiro nods and looks over at Coran at the front of the ship, “So we’ll be taking a wormhole too.”

Coran nods, turning back with his gaze on Allura, “I’ll fly a pod to Olkarion without wormhole, it’s close enough by that it won’t be extraneous. And Princess, and I think it’ll be best for you to fly the Castle to the Balmera as well. I don’t want for you to overextend yourself with three or four wormholes instead of two.” 

Allura’s eyebrows furrow but she doesn’t argue, instead she sighs, “I understand Coran.” After a moment she turns to address us as a collective, “Once we have the materials we need, we should all return to Olkarion from our respective locations and begin its assembly there.”

For a moment all is quiet as we look at one another. “I think we’ve got something here.” Shiro speaks in an awed tone after a moment. His gaze is fixated on the teludav hologram, and with a swipe of his hand he pulls up the image of Zarkon’s vessel as he speaks in an elevated, motivated manner, “It’s dangerous, and there are lots of moving parts, but if we can coordinate everything just right, then-”

“Zarkon’s reign will be at an end. The savagery that has poisoned our universe will finally be cleansed.” Kolivan states with a lilt in his voice, something I dare say may sound like hope, before his golden gaze falls to Shiro beside him. He stands a head shorter than Kolivan which is so  _ strange _ to see considering how tall Shiro is, and with an expression that seems rather soft Kolivan regards Shiro with what looks like respect, “You’ve done it, Shiro.”

Shiro offers Kolivan a smile, holding out a hand to shake, “We did it together.” 

Kolivan stares at Shiro’s hand just like he did yesterday, and after a long moment he reaches out and grasps Shiro’s forearm, the two share a look of mutuality that despite the anxiety twisting in my stomach… it fills me with some hope.  _ Maybe…  _

_ Maybe I’ve been too quick to judge them, the Blades. They’re just as desperate as we are to stop the war, and they’ve got even more of a stake in its outcome than we do. No one has been their allies in the past, for a thousand years they fought alone.  _

_ I think I may be glad that we are able to change that. Maybe. _

“So long as everyone sticks to the plan, it should work.” Allura says with a stern expression pointed at Kolivan, Shiro and Kolivan turn towards her where she stands by the hologram with her shoulders back and her stance wide, like a tree ready to face a hurricane.

“It  _ will  _ work.” Kolivan says with a nod, and suddenly his gaze flickers over at me where I sit in my chair. Immediately I balk, his eyes  _ terrify  _ me so much that I think I stop breathing, but he looks away after a moment, he turns to examine Allura’s features instead as he speaks again, “Perhaps then you’ll learn that not all Galra are like Zarkon.” 

_ … Feeling strangely targeted at the moment. _

Allura’s gaze averts from his and focuses across the bridge at Keith, who stands resolutely with his hands at his sides and his gaze locked on the base of the holographic image of Zarkon’s ship. Quietly, under her breath just barely loud enough for me to hear, she murmurs, “I hope not.” 

For some reason this sparks something within me, protectiveness, righteous frustration or something like it, but it makes my eyes narrow at her as her gaze continues to bear down on an oblivious Keith. He merely stands with a quiet, pensive expression, his eyes are far, far away.  _ I don’t think he’s thinking about the plan.  _

Antok’s voice, deep and gravelly, breaks the bridge and draws my attention to him, “Ulaz was right to trust you all.” 

Shiro nods, his expression turns grim as he looks to Antok with a soft gaze, “He sacrificed everything to bring us together. Let’s honor him by taking down Zarkon.”

The bridge is quiet for a moment before Hunk speaks in a low voice, “Wow. So this is it.” I look at him as he looks around the bridge, his gaze is far away and soft as he examines each and every one of us. Something in my chest warms, and the sudden taste of comprehension lingers like mint on my tongue from a simple look.

“Yeah.” I murmur under my breath, my gaze finding its way to Zarkon’s ship. “This is it. We’re about to hop into the pan, and then into the fire.”

“Don’t get on the Sappy-Train just yet, guys.” Lance says with a fingergun pointed in Hunk’s direction before he turns to me with a sardonic, deep voice,  _ “We’ve still got a city to burn.” _ I punch his arm with a slight eye roll. 

“It’s important now more than ever for us to succeed.” Shiro says with a serious expression, his gaze flickering to each of us as he murmurs, “If any one of us fails, the entire plan fails.”  _ Cheery. But I expect no less. That does make me even happier that I don’t have an important task to do individually besides escort the Castle to the Balmera. Of all of us, I’m without a doubt the weakest link in getting something done. God, I can’t even begin to imagine spearheading a prison break, or going to get scaultrite from wherever the fuck…   _

“So I guess the question is…” Pidge murmurs, her eyebrows furrowed as she examines the hologram, “When do we strike?”

“As soon as the teludav and the gravity generator is finished.” Kolivan answers, his gaze is firm and set, “We have little time to waste. Every moment leaves a chance for Thace to discovered.”

“Then it’s time to move.” Shiro says with a brisk nod, turning to Coran with a set in his brow, “Prepare the wormholes.” 

Allura nods as Coran makes a gesture of comprehension from the front, the hologram in the middle of the room dissolves as the circle recedes back into the floor. Allura steps within, her pillars rising to meet her hands as she opens a hologram before her and begins to type in the necessary commands.

“I will see you all on Olkarion soon.” Ryner says with a broad smile, waving their hand in farewell before the transmission cuts out.

Kolivan steps towards the doorway with Antok over his shoulder, gazing at our collective with a set tone, “The chip I gave you will allow for us to open remote communication with the Castle of Lions. When our spies report with good intel, we will relay it to you.” 

“Thank you, Kolivan.” Shiro says with a polite nod. 

“I’ll ready supplies for your journeys.” Coran calls, moving from his place at the front to the back of the bridge, heading out into the hallway. Kolivan nods respectfully to us and we offer farewell waves as he and Antok turn to follow Coran out of the room, at the last second Keith suddenly perks, “Wait, Kolivan!” 

The Blade of Marmora’s leader turns towards him as Keith rushes over, Coran leaves us on the bridge as they speak in quiet, rushed tones that I can’t hear. After a moment Kolivan shakes Keith’s hand with a serious gaze, I can see him hand Keith something before he turns and walks off. Keith lets out a breath, his back is turned to us as he looks at something in his hand, all I can see is his knife strapped to his belt on his back. The cloth is gone, the purple rune shines for the world to see. 

_ Wait a minute, did Coran say… supplies? _

Allura flickers her gaze to each of us where she stands within her circle, elaborating on a question that’s forming in each of our minds, “It’ll probably be a few days or so before we will all return together, due to travel time returning to Olkarion from our respective locations.” She murmurs, and when her gaze locks on me she offers me a slight smile that makes my heart soften. Our gazes turn to each other and immediate, warm, fuzzy feelings seem to wrap around us like a blanket draped over the room.

“Wow.” Hunk says after a moment, his bottom lip wobbling as he turns and looks at each of us with big, calf-like eyes, “What am I gonna do without you guys?!  _ For days?! _ ” 

“Yeah, it’s gonna be so weird.” Lance says with a hand on his hip and a vague gesture with the other, “We’ve seen each other literally every day for like, two weeks!” 

“Three weeks.” Keith corrects, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Lance turns and looks at him with narrowed eyes, “Yeah, whatever,  _ mullet. _ ” He pauses and purses his lips before he slightly frowns, hanging his head, “Aww, man, now who am I gonna make fun of?” 

“Not it.” Pidge calls with a wicked smirk. Keith makes a tired expression and sighs quietly, and a sudden spark of warmth lights in my being at seeing such a familiar expression.  _ An expression I know… maybe from a Keith I know.  _

Shiro laughs, shaking his head as he crosses his arms, “Come on guys, it’s just for a few days. We’ll be back together before you know it.” 

Allura taps on a hologram before her, our collective gaze turns to her as she looks to us with a gentle expression, “Hunk, your wormhole is ready to go. Best head down to your lion.” 

Hunk’s bottom lip trembles again as he reaches out and takes Pidge’s hand next to him, shaking it up and down with soft sniffles before he whispers,  _ “It’s been an honor.”  _

Pidge gives him a deadpan, done expression before she snorts and pushes on his head, “Go on, get out of here, dufus.” 

We hover around in the middle as Lance pats Hunk’s shoulder in farewell, and beside him Keith moves around towards Shiro. Shiro looks at him with a soft gaze before he reaches out and brings him into a hug, and when they pull away Hunk lets out a garbled noise that’s almost a plaintive sob,  _ “Aww, I’m gonna miss you guys!”  _

“Hunk,” I murmur with a slight smirk, “It’s only for a few days. You’ll be okay.” 

Hunk sniffles as he gives me a puppy eyed look, and as he heads towards his elevator he suddenly turns on heel with a gasp, “Wait, you don’t have a bad feeling about what’s going on, do you?  _ Please say you don’t! _ ” 

I roll my eyes and shake my head with a slight smile, “Nah. I have full faith in you, big guy. Get out there and get some scaultrite.” 

I look over at Keith where he stands by Shiro and see his gaze, masked and steady, on Allura. I follow it and see her turning away with a hard expression, her jaw is set and her eyes burn like a blue sun, purposefully keeping her back to him. Keith slightly hangs his head with a dejected expression and suddenly seems to become aware of my gaze, as he looks up and meets it with a surprising, vulnerable light in his eyes. It makes my heart clench in my chest to the point that I have to look away, the sheer intimacy of it makes my throat constrict.  _ Why does eye contact have to be so damn difficult? _

“See ya guys!” Pidge says with an enthusiastic wave. 

I look up at them as they turn their backs before I tag on, “Be safe out there.” Hunk turns towards me with wide, concerned eyes right as the doors to his elevator closes, and I just make eye contact with Keith as his closes as well. A part of me worms with guilt almost immediately, a hard stone resting in the pit of my stomach but I’m unsure why, or what to do with it. I turn to the others left standing in the middle of the room, looking to Allura expectantly. She taps at her panel for a few moments before she turns to them with a matter of fact tone, “Lance, Pidge, Shiro, your wormhole is ready to go whenever you are.”

Lance immediately turns to Allura with a cocked eyebrow, “So, how about a kiss for good luck?” He flashes her a charming smile, leaning on one of her pillars that rise beside her in a suave manner. I have to fight the urge to turn to the wall and smack my skull against the metal and hope it concusses me. 

Allura merely shakes her head, her gaze doesn’t leave her holograms as she answers politely, “You don’t need luck. You’ll be just fine, I know it.” 

For once, it appears Lance is speechless. “I… Er… I…” He clears his throat before he smiles genuinely, “Thanks, Princess.” 

“Alright, come on guys.” Shiro lays a hand on Lance and Pidge’s shoulders, turning them towards their respective elevators. 

I wave, smiling at them with a slight ache in my chest, “I’ll see you soon, guys. Get back safe.”

“Bye!” Pidge says with a wave, walking backwards into her elevator. 

“We’ll be back before you know it.” Shiro says with a solemn nod. 

“Wait, Will!” I blink and look over at Lance where he hesitates in his elevator doorway, holding the door with one arm as he waves his other hand vaguely, “Take care of Kaltenecker for me while I’m gone! She gets more hay and water every morning, the hay is across from her pasture and she likes the ones that have the crunchy bits so make sure she gets those! Oh and ‘cause we milked her the day before yesterday you’re gonna have to tomorrow-!”

I nod with a bright smile, “Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll make sure she’s well taken care of.” Lance lets out a soft breath of relief, stepping back and allowing his elevator door to close. Before long Allura and I are left alone on the bridge. 

I move and stand beside her, my hands moving to my pockets right as she turns to me, her eyes are bright and expressive as she lets out a sigh, “I must say, Will… I’m glad you’re here to accompany me to the Balmera. It would be so dreadful being all alone in the Castle.” 

I smile at her tenderly and shrug, “I’m more than happy to provide you some company, Allura.” I let my gaze fall as Allura presses her palms to her pillars, I watch as a soft blue light permeates from her hands and into the metal. I look beyond, outside the glass, and see two separate wormholes open with a sonic  _ boom _ . 

“When you’ve completed your missions, send a hailing frequency to the Castle.” Allura calls over the com in her earrings, and after a few minutes of waiting I watch as the Blue Lion and the Yellow Lion whizz by and enter the wormholes, once they’re through they snap out of existence with a  _ thrum _ .  _ … And they’re off.  _

_ I won’t be seeing them for several days. That’s just… hard to imagine. _

“Come on,” Allura says after a moment, turning to me with a gentle gaze, “Let’s go see Coran off.” I nod and obediently fall in step with her as we head to the hangers.

Once there I see a pod standing still in the center of the pod bay with Coran bent over in the passenger seat, presumably storing supplies for the journey.  _ I’m sure it must feel like a never ending road trip flying the pod to Olkarion without any chance to stop and stretch your legs. Damn. That’s bound to be lonely. And boring.  _

“Coran,” Allura says as we approach, causing him to lift his head with a perk in his ears. 

He comes about with his shoulders back, and as soon as he sees Allura’s expression his features soften, his words are gentle and kind as he murmurs, “Don’t worry. We’ll see each other soon.”

Allura smiles, her eyes glisten with emotion as she wraps her arms around him tightly, her voice is gentle and full of warmth, “Take care.”

They break apart after a moment, and with a serious look Coran rests his hands on her shoulders and murmurs affectionately, “Stay safe, Princess.” His gaze turns to me, and his eyes glisten like silver stars as he smiles, “You take care of her now, Number four. I’m leaving her in your hands.” 

I nod before giving him a winning smile, “Don’t worry. I honestly feel more like I’m left in  _ her  _ hands rather than the other way around.” 

Coran smiles a bit, his gaze traveling back to Allura’s as he continues in a more upright tone, “I’ve just loaded the coordinates in the pod, I should arrive to Olkarion in less than a quintant.”

Allura nods with a set in her brow, “Good. Be sure to hail us as soon as you arrive.” 

Coran mirrors her expression, and with a bow of his head he turns and clambers into the pod. Allura and I retreat to the outside of the hanger, closing the clear doors as the main doorway into empty space opens. Coran’s pod lifts off slowly before whizzing out, and before long it’s difficult to discern the pod’s thrusters from the stars. 

Allura lets out a soft sigh, and after a moment she turns to me with a set expression, “It’s off to the Balmera.” 

I nod with a grin, echoing, “Off to the Balmera, ho!” Allura raises an eyebrow at me with slight amusement as we head back to the bridge, and strangely I’m filled with a sense of hollowness. The halls suddenly feel bigger, the Castle walls feels colder, and I realize that Lance was right; we’ve been around each other nonstop for about a month and now it’s just Allura and I alone in the massive Castle. And wherever the Altean mice are, I suppose, but it does make the Castle feel a whole lot emptier than it was just minutes before. 

We enter the bridge and I take up my seat in the back, tapping my holographic panel to propel all power to the thrusters as Allura stands in her circle in the center. An image of the Balmera pops up on the screen ahead, and on my own holographic screen I watch as we lock onto its coordinates and a number appears in its center,  _ ‘TIME OF TRAVEL: 2q’  _

_ Damn. Two whole days with nothing but an empty Castle and Allura for company.  _

_ This is certainly gonna feel… strange.  _

Once the Castle is set on course, Allura turns to look at me with a soft smile. “Well,” She begins, her shoulders straightening as she speaks in a surprisingly familial tone, “It appears we have plenty of time to spend together, Will.”

“It appears so.” I say with a slight smirk, settling my ankle on my knee as I recline back in my seat a bit, “I’m always here for some team bonding.”

Allura’s smile brightens as she chuckles, her pillars recede into the floor as she steps away from her circle, “We should get some lunch.” She taps the thick metal around her wrist as she raises an eyebrow at the Altean holographic screen, “Or dinner, rather. We’ve been quite busy planning today.”

Almost immediately my stomach growls at the prospect. I nod enthusiastically, rising from my seat, “Oh yes please, I’m famished!” 

As we head towards the kitchens, the more I walk and the more the silence of the halls surrounds me, the more tired I become so that by the time we arrive to the kitchen I’m yawning relatively uncontrollably. _ I think my exhaustion is catching up to me, now that everyone is gone and everything’s quiet. It makes sense, I did get like… five, four hours of sleep last night. And the day before was pretty close to literal hell.  _ Allura and I don’t bother taking our food goo to the dining room, instead we sit and eat at the counter in the kitchen with each other’s company. I yawn for what feels like the tenth time, and this time Allura looks at me with a raised eyebrow, “What is it that you are doing?” She asks with genuine confusion, her spoon held poised in her hand. 

I raise an eyebrow and rub my eyes, “What? Yawning? Oh uh… It’s a sign I’m tired. I think the biological explanation is that not enough oxygen is getting into my brain because I’m sleep deprived, but I don’t actually know if that is true or not.” I’m cut off by another yawn, I barely cover my mouth in time. “Sorry.”

“Ah.” Allura nods in understanding as we finish the last of our dinner, “So you’ll be headed to bed?”

I nod, suppressing another yawn before it threatens to break my jaw, “Yeah. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night ‘cause I was up in the infirm waiting on Keith, so I think it’s catching up to me.” 

Allura’s expression is a careful mask, she wordlessly nods as she takes my empty bowl from me, before she murmurs, “I understand.” 

I rise, rubbing my eyes again as I give her a smile, “See you tomorrow for breakfast?” 

Allura nods in agreement, so I turn away from her and head out towards my room while dragging my feet.

Night has settled in the Castle, and I find passing the residential hall is strange, knowing the others are not asleep within. The darkness crowds around me and makes me feel so suddenly alone that it chills my skin, when I turn around I suddenly feel very, very small, and very much alone. 

I quickly duck into my room and turn on the light before I get ready for bed, yawning as I collapse on the sheets and despite how tired I am as soon as I’m curled under the covers the desperate grasp for sleep I wish for doesn’t come. I shut off the light and close my eyes tighter but instead my thoughts swarm,  _ like always _ , and occupy me too much to actually get to sleep. 

_ This is gonna be so strange, being alone in the Castle with Allura for a few days. Not in a bad way, I like Allura a lot and will enjoy her company greatly but… I’d seen everyone on the team at least twice or more every day for the past month. I’ve grown used to it, used to them, and now they’ve all left, we’ve ghosted to the winds. It’s strangely chilling how quickly I got attached to these chucklefucks, I typically consider myself the kind of guy who goes ride or die for people pretty quick but they go beyond that. Such is how trauma bonding usually goes, but still. I’ve never had a group of people I care about so deeply so quickly than I do now, how much I like these bitches rivals that of my field hockey team back in Virginia. I wonder if they’ve noticed I’m gone, that I’m no longer sending neomes in the group chat or being the general big brother figure.  _

_ Is this what it’s gonna be like, back on Earth? This war with Zarkon is going to end much sooner than we thought, and once we defeat Zarkon, dismantle the grasp the Galra Empire has across the galaxies, push them back to a reasonable size and free the suppressed planets… we can head home. That sounds like a lot to do, actually, but we are getting to the whole defeating Zarkon bit faster than I thought we would. Driving Galra out of solar systems will take time, but we did it on the Balmera and on Olkarion in the span of a day, so a planet a day… We could feasibly free the galaxy within a reasonable amount of time, a  _ **_finite_ ** _ amount of time. There’s an end in sight now, and I don’t think we’ve had that before. I think that’s why it felt so momentous for us to separate, change is happening and we’re not stuck in an infinite, endless war. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder what this means for us, as a group.  _

_ I suppose I shouldn’t get my hopes up yet. We’ve still got an Empire to dismantle, and that’s no easy feat. There’s an end in sight, but damn if there ain’t some hurdles we gotta overcome to get there.  _

… 

_ “I’m so scared.”  _

_ I’m standing in a room, I’m shaking violently as I stare out the window from the Green Lion’s hanger within the Castle. There are thousands of Galra cruisers outside, firing blast after blast and I can feel the metal creaking as the Castle is pummeled, the particle barrier has long fallen.  _

_ “We’re outmanned, outnumbered, and outgunned.” I turn to see the rest of the team collected behind me, staring in horror out the glass and beyond. Shiro’s head is in his hands, fear causes his hands to shake as they clutch his head, “It’s over. It’s all over.”  _

_ “This is it.” Lance falls, sitting down with his hopeless gaze looking out the glass, “I’m never gonna see my family again. They’re gonna kill us all!” His voice shakes, tears are welling in his eyes. _

_ “Guys, guys no!” I look up at Hunk as he pushes forward, he looks surprisingly coherent and it makes me realize, based on the slow blinks and glacial movements of the others that we’re practically zombies in comparison. “We can’t give up!” He cries, his voice shakes as the floor violently hitches but we remain unmoving, paralyzed in fear. _

_ I find myself speaking suddenly, I can’t control my words as a sob buries in my throat, “They’ve destroyed the lions! We’re as good as dead.” I sniffle, my voice starts shaking and I can’t stop it, “What’re we gonna do, Hunk? What can we possibly do?” _

_ Hunk growls and grabs my shoulders, shaking me surprisingly hard as he yells, “Snap out of it, Will! We’re gonna get through this, but we can only do it together!” He turns around and looks at each of us with terrified eyes, shouting over the sound of the Castle breaking apart, “Come on, don’t give up now! Don’t give in!”  _

_ “I-I’m getting out of here.” Pidge’s voice trembles and she turns on heel, breaking into a sprint out of her hanger. The others move to follow, fear glows in their eyes and immediately my heart pounds in my chest as I run after them like a blind, frightened horse, I’m scared, I’m so goddamn scared- _

_ “Stop! Don’t go!” Hunk cries, he tries to grab my arm as I race by but I slip out just in time, the last thing I hear as I flee is a terrified scream, “Please! Come back!”  _

I blink awake slowly, the remnants of the fear cling to the edges of my mind as I come to. I shake my head, sitting up with my head in my hands as my heart pounds but it recedes rather quickly. It’s like when there’s a jumpscare in a horror movie, it’s terrifying at first but then it’s over and then everything’s okay again. 

_ That was… weird. I don’t know if these dreams are normal or not, to lose control of oneself like that. Maybe I’m just stressed because I’m alone and the others are out doing dangerous things. Yeah, that’s probably it. Oh man, I was just fine not thinking about that but now I’m thinking about it, I hope Pidge, Shiro, and Lance are okay. I wonder if they’ve broken this Slav guy out of prison yet. I wonder what kind of fucker this guy is, anyway. Apparently a badass one since he had a whole entire prison constructed just for him, like, that’s pretty intense. I hope Hunk and Keith are okay, too, but I’m not sure how dangerous their situation is. I know a jailbreak is definitely dangerous, but getting scaultrite from a Weblum? Maybe it’s like getting a crystal from the Balmera, and they’ll be out before I can say Weblum ten times. _

I roll out of bed slowly, taking my time to get ready. As I pull off my shirt, however, to my shock no weight hits my chest. Confused I look down and touch my neck and chest and realize I don’t have my lion’s stone. Panic sets in, I whirl around and open the drawers of my dresser before I remember exactly the last place I had it was.  _ I gave it to Keith back at the Blade of Marmora’s base. That must mean he still has it. Fuck.  _

_ That’s fine, I’m sure I won’t need it. Besides, he might. I wonder if my lion is capable of healing across such a distance, though, back on Olkarion it didn’t work as effectively until I was closer to her. Fuck, so it might just be useless. I hope he didn’t lose it.  _

_ I doubt it, I don’t think he’d lose something that important, but… maybe he left it in his room. _ I rub my eyes and as I walk out of my room, now looking at the other paladins’ doors reminds me of the emptiness in the Castle. I shiver and head across the hall to Keith’s room, and for a moment as I stand outside the door I wonder if it’s rude of me to go looking through his stuff while he’s out.  _ I’m looking for my stone, though, that’s reason enough to look. Maybe he took it off when he got out of the pod and just forgot to give it to me, you never know. It’s fine. I’m not nosing around, I’m looking for my stone.  _ I let out a breath and walk into his room. 

It’s surprisingly bare inside, nothing within would hint that this was Keith’s room if it wasn’t for his boots in the corner and his jacket hung on the handle of his dresser next to it.  _ That damn, ugly, stupid jacket. I blame you for 60% of my gay feelings being so gay.  _ However, looking at the surfaces, on the top of his  _ made bed, wow, he makes his bed, that’s so cute, you can take the boy out of the Garrison but not the Garrison out of the boy _ … I don’t see my stone anywhere.  _ I don’t wanna go digging through his stuff looking for it, if it isn’t out in the open then he probably still has it on him. I wonder if he forgot about it too, or if he brought it with him on purpose. But why would he do that? He probably just forgot he had it.  _

I shake my head and leave his room behind, looking down the hall when suddenly I remember what Lance had asked me to do before he left.  _ Oh, shit, right. I promised Lance I’d take care of Kaltenecker. I better go check on her.  _

I walk down the hallway and then into her holographic pasture after a few turns away from the residency hall. Inside Kaltenecker peacefully swishes her tail from side to side where she stands beneath the run in shed in the center of the grassy field. I pause within, taking turns in circles to look at the skies above and internally I wonder just  _ how it’s possible  _ for a hologram to make it look  _ so real _ .  _ I wonder what place this hologram is reflecting, if it’s any place at all in particular or if it’s just “generic pretty meadow” or whatever. Seems likely, but you never know.  _

I recollect my thoughts as my vision zones in on Kaltenecker and move to approach her. She’s happily eating the last of a bale of hay, most of her water is also gone.  _ Luckily Kaltenecker seems to like it… maybe. Can’t be sure. She certainly looks content.  _ Picking up the bucket I pat her shoulder, she doesn’t even spare me a glance as I walk out of the pasture again. I take the bucket to the closest bathroom and fill it up with water, with some struggling I take it back and set it down in her runin again before leaving once more for more hay.  _ Lance said hay was across the hall…  _

Sure enough I see a doorway, and when I pass through it I’m confronted with a large wall with a holographic panel in the middle. I blink and tap it and see the menu options pop up,  _ carnivore, herbivore, omnivore _ . I raise an eyebrow and tap  _ herbivore _ and a whole fuckton of options show up, but the one pinned at the very top is an image of a hay bale. I tap it and suddenly to my right a fresh hay bale falls out of a compartment and onto the ground, it closes up once it stills. 

_ Huh. Wow. That’s pretty fucking handy.  _

_ My grandpapa would go apeshit over this.  _

I blink at where the hole once was and then the compartment before shrugging and taking it back to Kaltenecker. When I drop the hay bale with a pant she lifts her head and looks at me with a soft brown, puppy like gaze; my heart swells, I pet her head fondly and scratch between her horns. Her eyes flutter shut and her ears flicker to the sides as I coo to her in babytalk,  _ “How’s you’s, Kaltenecker? Doing good, girl?”  _ I rub her ears affectionately for a few minutes before I step away, kneeling down beside her with my hand on her flank to inspect her utters; they’re completely healthy, there isn’t even a trace of the infection that once was.  _ Good, that’s awesome. Wow, Lance has really been taking good care of her, she’s living like a goddamn queen up in here. _

_ Alright, time to milk her.  _ I rise and scratch her back before I head to the door, as I do I spot the empty bucket sitting just next to the doorway where Lance and I left it the day before yesterday. I take it back to Kaltenecker and milk her, once the deed is done I give her one last affectionate pat before I take the bucket and dump it out in the sink of the nearby bathroom.  _ Maybe one day I’ll ask Hunk if he wants the stuff for anything. Maybe he can make ice cream, or milk shakes, or… I don’t fucking know, cereal or something. Either way, he may appreciate a new ingredient to work with.  _ After I return the bucket to its original location I head out,  _ finally _ , for breakfast.  _ Damn. Does Lance do this every morning? … I have to say I have a whole lot more respect for him right now than before. Not that I didn’t before, but like… wow. I’m a little shocked he was so responsible. Fool me twice, I guess, I’m just really glad he’s taking his role as cow-dad seriously and to the fullest extent. _

When I arrive to the kitchen, Allura is sitting with her legs crossed at the counter and before her the Altean mice stand at attention, weaving in among each other like they’re trapped in an invisible pen. As soon as I walk in, however, they freeze, looking at me with owlish gazes as Allura turns at the sound of the door opening. “Oh, good morning, Will!” She says cheerfully, smiling at me warmly. She’s wearing this strange, dark blue dress that stops by her knees with long sleeves that hang down her elbows elegantly, a strange combination that somehow works remarkably well, with pink ribbons tied around her wrists and pink rhinestones around the collar.  _ Weird, yet suiting. Maybe she just has one of those figures that no matter what she wears she looks good.  _

“Hey hey.” I wave, moving to get some food goo with a call over my shoulder, “Hey mice, how’s it?” 

“Oh my.” I blink and turn around to see the mice stock still, staring at me with creepy, wide eyes as one of them chitters. Allura gasps before she shakes her head, “What? No, not at all. There’s no need to be afraid!”

I blink in surprise, moving to sit beside her. The mice don’t bolt, even though they look like they want to, and much to my surprise they seem soothed by Allura’s words, they mill about before us on the countertop, sitting next to one another while waving their little paws around. “They’re scared of me?” I ask incredulously, looking over at Allura with a raised eyebrow, “Why?”

Allura frowns with a slight shrug, regarding the mice warmly, “They say ‘first impressions’. But they’re willing to give you more of a chance now, it seems.”

“... Alright then.” I murmur, looking at the mice apologetically as I give a little wave, “Thanks little guys!” They look up at me with apathetic gazes, or at least they kinda look like it but I can’t be sure, I can’t read mouse expressions. 

“So you can understand them?” I ask with a confused look thrown at Allura as I eat. 

She nods, her sapphire eyes glow in the light, “Yes, I believe spending time in the cryo-pods for a thousand years gave me some sort of telepathic link to them. If I focus hard enough, I can read their thoughts and speak to them that way if necessary.”

A memory clicks as I turn to face her a little more, “Isn’t that how you got the particle barrier to drop back on Arus?” Allura nods with a faint smile. “Damn. Alright then.” I look down at the mice with newfound appreciation, giving them a thumbs up, “Way to go, y’all.” 

I balk when one of the mice mimic my gesture, lifting a paw and sticking a single digit in the air. 

_ Oh. So this is what anthropomorphic animals are like in real life. That’s unsettling as hell. _

“So Will, with the day to yourself, what are your plans? What do you like to do for fun?” Allura asks with a curious gaze, resting her chin in her hand as she regards me warmly.

I blink, looking off to the side while deep in thought. “Uh… I dunno. Back on Earth I didn’t get a lot of time for myself because of school, so what I typically did was… write. Or play music.” I smile sheepishly as I wiggle my spoon in the bowl to make the goo wobble, “My life kinda revolves around it. When I wasn’t listening to music I was learning to play a song, when I wasn’t learning a song I was writing a score, and when I wasn’t doing  _ that  _ I was writing short stories and stuff.”

Allura blinks in surprise, “How fascinating! Is this music like the kind that you played for us during our sleepover?” 

I shrug, “Sometimes, but not usually. I like acoustic well enough, but back home I had this keyboard.” I demonstrate with my hands out flat, a small smile stretching across my face, “It had a lot of cool features that would change the sounds to be more synthetic, traditional, metallic… Given time and a good music recording app, I could recreate almost any song, save for the ones that are extremely heavy on the layers of bass.”

Allura regards me with a wondrous expression, “... How interesting.” 

I give her a look and laugh awkwardly, “I mean, I guess. My tastes are pretty eclectic, and not many people are really into music now a days, not like I am.” I finish the last of my goo, pushing it to the side as I continue, “Back on Earth, everyone’s kinda focused on space exploration. We’ve gotten new technology developed that allowed us to get to the outer edges of our solar system and it’s the new big thing. Everyone wanted to be a part of it.” I bite my lip and shrug, “I didn’t. I actually never wanted to go to space, not in the slightest. Too much insignificance on a cosmic level.” I glance over at Allura and realize how much I’m rambling, so I clam up with an awkward laugh, “Funny how things work out, huh?”

Allura stares at me incredulously for a long moment before she straightens, “You never wanted to leave your planet? Ever?” 

I shake my head, “At the time, all I knew, all I think anyone knew, was our solar system and the galaxies directly surrounding us. Hell, we didn’t think aliens existed. I dunno, I just didn’t see anything about space that I wanted to be a part of, nothing about it called to me like music or writing does.” 

“... I cannot imagine a world where that’s the case.” Allura murmurs in shock, her hands folding in her lap. I shrug with an embarrassed flush, and after a moment Allura fixes me with a searching gaze, “How do you feel now? After seeing what we have?” 

A smirk stretches across my features, “Geez, I dunno. It’s just so mind boggling to me at how different the universe is, how  _ beautiful  _ it can be. Like,” I wave my hands, struggling to find the words that match my feelings, “Sometimes I look out in space and think  _ wow. What a whole lot of nothing. I feel so small and pathetic _ but then other times I look and I see a nebula or a star or a network of constellations and think  _ there is nothing else like this in the whole world, no one can see this but me _ and just… the beauty is unimaginable.” I tilt my head to the side, my eyes half closed as I murmur, “I’ve seen sunsets on Earth that paint the sea in golds and scarlets and I’ve looked up these brilliant green mountains and down at mediterranean valleys… but space? It’s a different kind of beauty, one that I never really considered before. It’s ethereal, it’s eternal and endless, and what I’ve seen only graces the surface of it, it’s barely a taste because there’s so  _ so  _ much more. It’s kind of humbling in a way.” 

Allura doesn’t speak for a long moment and I can’t help but blush a little in embarrassment as I avert my gaze from her pondering visage, “Sorry, that was kind of a… a lot of oversharing-”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Allura replies gently, her eyes are strangely far away yet soft around the edges, like a shined moonstone, “I can see the artistry in you in moments like these. It makes sense that music calls to you, you see eloquency and beauty in the corners of worlds that others don’t, and you express it well.” 

Immediately a deep red blooms across my face, I glance at her and then at my hands as I laugh, “Aww, now you’ve got me all flustered with your  _ compliments _ .” Allura chuckles as I stand, taking my dish and then Allura’s where it rests before her as I move around the counter, putting it in the wash as I add, “Thanks. That’s very sweet of you.” 

“Any time.” Allura replies amicably, straightening from her seat to stand as well when suddenly her hand rises to her ears, specifically touching her purple earrings. The mice race from the tabletop and climb up her arms to her shoulders as she looks at me with a sudden, newfound purpose shining in her gaze, “Coran is hailing us!”

I blink as Allura heads for the doorway with long, purposeful strides, I quickly follow with fast steps. She heads onto the bridge, and as soon as her feet walk through the doorway the pillars in her circle begin to rise. Her hands tap them and with a wave of her fingertips a hologram projects before her that show Coran’s face. Behind him is a window with dark green metal surrounding it, beyond the glass is towering buildings of olive and lime, glittering like the Emerald City in full sunlight. 

“Greetings, Princess!” Coran says with a bright smile and an enthusiastic wave, “I’ve just arrived to Olkarion! Ryner has already assigned several engineers to the task of constructing the ring, at this moment I’m about to walk into a meeting with them and assist with the blueprinting process. We hope that by the time you arrive to the Balmera, construction will be underway.” 

Allura beams with enthusiasm, her eyes shine like diamonds under the light of the Balmeran crystal overhead, “Excellent Coran, I’m glad to hear this news. Do be sure to get some rest, I’m sure you must be exhausted after your long journey.”

Coran twirls his silvery mustache between his fingers idly as he speaks, “Don’t you worry about me, Princess, I’ll be alright. How goes travel to the Balmera?”

Allura glances over at me with a faint smile before she returns her gaze to Coran’s holographic image, “Uneventful, no signs of Zarkon, Galra, or otherwise. We’re in between galaxies at the moment, and probably won’t come in contact with others unless they’re traveling between like we are.”

“That’s good to hear!” Coran looks off camera for a moment, his ears wiggling before he returns his gaze to Allura, “The meeting is about to start, I must go; if you need me for anything, I’m always here for you.” He smiles in a gentle, fond manner, the outlines of the blue markings on his cheek bones grow pronounced with the movement, and with a wave of his hand the transmission cuts. 

“I’m glad Coran made it safe.” I murmur, glancing over at Allura with an encouraging grin, “One recon down, two more to go.” 

Allura’s eyes are far away, but at the sound of my voice she perks up a little and then offers me a soft smile, “I- Yes.” She lets out a breath, her hands clasped over her heart as we stand in silence for a few moments. 

Unsure of what to say, I raise an eyebrow at her with my hands in my pockets, “Well, we’ve got the day to basically do whatever we want. Have anything in particular you wanna do?”

Allura turns to me and mimics my expression, after a moment she speaks with a thoughtful look, “You know, Will, I have yet to see you fight since your first day of training.” 

I blink in surprise, glancing over at her with wide eyes, “... Is this your way of saying you wanna throw hands with me?” 

Allura’s crystal eyes immediately widen, “My-  _ no!  _ I merely mean…” She recollects herself from her initial shock, clearing her throat, “All I mean is… I know you’ve mentioned in the past how you struggle because you haven’t received the same training as the other Paladins in certain fields.” I look down at my feet, suddenly feeling abashed as she continues, “So… I suppose it was clumsy of me to phrase it in such a way, but I was offering to spar with you to help improve your skills.” 

“Oh.” I look at Allura with a stunned expression, I can see her gaze closely examining mine. I rub the back of my neck and smile sheepishly, “I mean… I won’t turn you down for sure. But fighting isn’t really  _ all _ I suck at.” I huff, looking off to the side, “Like, for example, I don’t know how to walk out in empty space. I’ve never done that before, moving around in zero gravity, it’s like…  _ impossible! _ I think the only way I’ve been able to succeed so far is trying to copy the others… with mixed success.” I huff, clearing my throat with a slight burn in my cheeks, “I’m learning how to fly a little better every day, so at least there’s that, but…” I look at her suddenly with a spark of hope, “Do you think that that’s something you can help me with, too? Since we’re on the subject, I mean, if you don’t want to-”

Allura perks up visibly, her hands clasped over her heart as she beams, “I’d be happy to help!” The Altean mice on her shoulders look at me with such coordination that I suddenly balk as Allura turns away with a purposeful pep in her step, “Let us begin on the training deck. I’m eager to see how your skills have improved.” 

_ … Funky. _

I snort, “It hasn’t really, so do go easy on me.” I split ways, jutting a thumb towards the hangers when we reach a divide in the hall, “I’m gonna go get my bayard and suit and stuff, meet you on the deck?”

Allura nods with a smile, and with that I break away and head in that direction.  _ Huh. I wonder what got her thinking about that just now. Is it really obvious that there’s a hole in education between me and the others?  _

_ Maybe this is the reason why Shiro wanted me to stay at the Castle with her. Not just because I shouldn’t be trusted with an important mission but also because it’s a chance for me to make up in what I lack. I mean… it’s a correct assumption, I can’t deny it’s needed, but also, ouch.  _

Once I’m suited up I head to the training deck. Allura is already within, she’s changed into her similar Voltron-esque suit with the pink symbol over her chest but now she also bears what looks like a sword, but unlike any I’ve ever seen. It’s long and no thicker than my forearm, and every few inches there are notches in it like the seams in chiton armor, coming out of the long, thin hilt. She stands in the middle with it at hand, turning with slow motions in practice moves when she spots me. She stands ready almost immediately as I approach, her hands out and at the ready as she calls, “Alright then, Will, let’s see what you’ve got.”

I blink and summon my bayard from my suit, “Just… attack you?” My bayard extends into its lance form as I give Allura a cautious, confused expression, “Like, out of the blue? I’m not sure-” I’m cut off as Allura suddenly closes the distance in a flash, I barely lift my bayard in time to block a slash aimed towards my head. I twist to the side and attack with one end before jabbing out with the other to catch her off balance but Allura easily dodges the first attack and then blocks the second with the hilt of her sword, pushing the end of  my bayard aside with shocking strength to the point I have to take a step back to accommodate for it. She lashes out with her sword and I duck backwards to dodge but it knocks me off balance, she easily kicks me in the leg and sends me tumbling backward. I fall hard on my back but roll to the side quickly, pulling myself back upright right as Allura’s sword suddenly extends, I watch with wide eyes as it grows longer, more fluid, until it’s in an almost whip-like form. Just as I’m rising to my feet she lashes out and the end wraps my ankle, with a hard tug I fall again but this time I can’t rise as Allura plants her foot on my chest.  _ Wow. Okay. Holy shit.  _

_ Allura is certainly a much better fighter than I ever could’ve thought.  _

“Well, that wasn’t nearly as terrible as your first time facing the Gladiator.” Allura says with a tone that sounds frighteningly like Mr. Roads’ as she reaches out a hand to help me up. 

I take it and stand, giving her a slight smile, “Eh, well, I’ve been practicing a bit.” I gesture down to the weapon in her hands, which shrinks back into itself to return to a sword, “Weird sword you’ve got there.”

“It is called a varyian.” Allura replies, holding it aloft with her gaze peering down the side, “It’s what you would call my weapon of choice.”

“Hmm.” I murmur, looking at it for a moment before turning to her, “That was good, though, you handed my ass to me on a silver platter. Again?” 

I let out a cry as Allura suddenly sweeps the leg, knocking me on my back again. I look up at her accusingly as she smiles in a charming manner, “Yes, again.”

…

Allura works with me in the training room for a majority of the day only to break for lunch, by which point I’m shaking, sweaty, beaten and bruised to the point that if I were to lay down and sleep for a week I would wake up tired and sore. I do feel better in that I think my skills improved as we worked, but what annoys me minutely is how Allura seems barely affected, not nearly as much as I am; she looks like she went for a light jog rather than beat my ass up and down the training deck for hours.  _ Well damn. I mean, she is most definitely a better fighter than me, but I still feel a bit attacked.  _

“Alright,” I huff, slumped in my seat in the kitchen as I let my spoon clatter in my bowl, “Allura, you’ve certainly beat some shape into me today, but for sake of my body’s integral structure I think I’m gonna have to call it quits on training today.”

Allura chuckles quietly, her ears perk which causes her earrings to sway as she smiles, “You made great progress. You learn quickly.”

“That’s what happens when I get punched when I’m wrong.” I joke with a teasing tone.

Allura smiles with a soft chuckle, rising from the counter and after briefly touching her fingertips to my shoulder she moves around to collect our dishes and put them away. After a moment, however, she starts and touches her fingertips to her ears before she looks at me with an excited expression, “I’m receiving a hailing frequency from the Blue Lion!” 

I perk up immediately, and together we hurry to the bridge, despite the agony in my legs from the soreness of getting my ass handed to me, sudden excitement fuels my drive. Allura waves her hands as soon as we pull up to her circle and a holographic image appears before us of the cockpit of the Blue Lion. Lance sits in his seat with his hands on the controls and over his shoulder I can see Pidge and Shiro hovering close by, but what immediately draws my eye is the stranger curled next to Pidge. They look like a cross between a cat, an otter, and an owl, they have large eyes but catlike ears, but a beak like that of an owl. They’re covered in sea green and white fur that’s sleek, like the fur of an otter, and their body is long like a rope that’s as thick around as Pidge. Strangest of all is that they have multiple sets of hands like that of the Arusians, small and grabby like a child’s, and from what I can see from the camera angle it looks like they have at least three or four pairs of hands lining up the sides of their body. 

“Hey guys!” Pidge cries in excitement, waving at the monitor.

Immediately I burst into a broad grin, “Hey! Looks like you guy got Slav?”

Lance makes an absolutely exhausted face as he glances over to his right at the long, furry extra to his cabin, “Yeah, consider him got.” The furry creature, Slav, leans in close to the monitor until he’s almost all I can see, and I hear him speaking but it’s in an accent that I can barely understand, it’s like a chortle with a purring after effect but I can clearly hear him say  _ “Reality”  _ and  _ “Alloy. _ ” It doesn’t help that he’s so close to the microphone that half of his words are static.

Lance pushes his face out of the way as Shiro speaks from over his shoulder, “We’re on our way to Olkarion now, we’ll be arriving in about two days.” 

Allura beams immediately, “Excellent, that should be around the time that Will and I will be returning from the Balmera.”

“Great. We’ll be sure to see you guys then.” Shiro says with a brisk nod. 

Lance makes a swift salute, a cheeky smile spread from ear to ear as he cries, “That’s all from Blue, Sharpshooter out!” He reaches forward to cut the transmission just as I hear Pidge mutter,  _ “Sharpshooter?”  _

The hologram fades, leaving Allura and I on the bridge alone once more. 

Strangely, I’m filled with a sense of hollowness. Seeing them together, even though it’s only been a day, reminds me of how lonely it is in a massive, empty Castle without them here.  _ I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wanna hear Lance crack a stupid joke. Or listen as Shiro declares about the importance of teamwork, or hell, I even want Pidge to try and explain all sorts of tech junk that I can never hope to understand.  _

_ Wow. I really do miss them.  _

_ Now all we have to hear from is Hunk and Keith. I wonder how their trip for scaultrite is going. Hopefully a little better than our trip to the space mall, despite it being fun as hell in retrospect. _

“It’s good to hear their mission went well.” Allura moves from her circle, drawing me out of my thoughts as she turns towards the door, “Now while I’m thinking about it, I’m going to go and check on the teludav and the main engines to ensure they’re running properly after the two wormhole jumps.”

I raise an eyebrow with a slight smirk, “You sound like Coran. Need any help?”

Allura shakes her head with another smiles as she walks towards the doorway, “I’ll be alright, thank you.”

I walk after her, even though my legs  _ do not  _ want to, “Well, I can at least keep you company, right?” 

Allura pauses and looks back at me with a raised eyebrow before her gaze suddenly hardens, “I’ve no need for to shadow me, Will, I can take care of myself.”

I blink, balking a little in the doorway before I stammer, “What? I… I didn’t mean- no, it’s not…” I clear my throat, frowning a little as I look back up at her with a softer gaze, “It’s just… we’re all alone here, you know? It’s so weird now without everyone around, and I dunno… I just wanna spend some time with you. That’s not bad, is it?” I rub the back of my neck, mostly out of discomfort but also to stretch the aching muscles of my shoulders as I continue to speak, “If you want time alone that’s okay, though. I just… I’m not following you around because I feel like I have to. I guess I just don’t want you to get lonely. Or for me to get lonely. You know?”

Allura’s gaze widens as I speak before it grows softer, word by word until her expression warms visibly. She wraps her hands around her elbows with a shied expression to the side as she murmurs, “I’m sorry… I wasn’t expecting…” She pauses, her eyes rising to meet mine, “Thank you. I think I would enjoy the company.” 

I can’t help but perk up a little in excitement as we head down the hallway, I take up to walking beside her. After a few moment’s quiet I glance over at her with a smile, “Alright, so Allura, since we’re gonna be hanging out here for a while, I think-  _ oh geez- _ ” I stall a little as my legs groan in complaint with the wane of minute adrenaline hailing the Blue Lion brought, Allura looks back at me with a raised eyebrow but I quickly shake it off with an embarrassed flush as I walk after her, “Sorry, I’m sore from you kicking my ass up and down the training deck.”

Allura’s eyes widen before she covers her mouth with her fingertips, “My. Will, are these colloquial phrases of yours common on Earth? Because they’re quite…  _ vulgar. _ ” 

I blink at her for a moment before I clear my throat, “Oh. I mean, relatively… Sorry, is it making you uncomfortable?”

Allura shakes her head after a moment, “No, I’m just surprised. No one speaks in such a manner around me, usually.” 

I shrug a bit, hissing as the muscles in my shoulders  _ disagree  _ with the movement before I speak, “Yeah, uh… I don’t make these phrases up usually, so I guess they’re colloquial. I’ve never really had to censor myself, my parents are okay with me swearing so I usually don’t bother stopping but uh… Not a lot of people were raised like me.” I smile shyly and stretch my arms as we head down the hall as subtly as possible, mostly because  _ it’s no fair that I feel like a bruised rag doll and you’re fine and dandy, Allura, like goddamnit I’m jealous, did I even put up an amusing fight?  _ “I don’t suppose you’d share any Altean swear words?”

Allura chuckles immediately, looking over at me with a girlish light in her eyes as she shakes her head, “The most vulgar is  _ quiznak _ , which you and the other paladins have  _ quickly  _ caught up on… but there are a few, milder ones. However, they seem to have translations in your language, as you say them quite frequently.” 

“Oh.” I flush in embarrassment before laughing awkwardly, “Sorry. I guess I really should watch my mouth a bit more, being a Paladin and all… Role modeling and stuff.” 

Allura smiles over at me with a slight shrug, “It’s alright, I think that it’s a part of your charm. You’re rather…  _ Roguish  _ if you will.” 

I blink in surprise as we walk into the teludav chamber, Allura walks to the far end where a holographic panel lies and opens it, words in Altean and numbers fly by incomprehensibly. “You think I’m  _ roguish _ ?” I ask with a slight smirk, moving to sit on the desktop next to the panel Allura is looking at. “Never heard that before.” 

“Perhaps not roguish. More abrasive, I suppose, you don’t feel the need to conform yourself to an expectation or a standard. You don’t change how you act depending on who you are speaking with.” Allura responds evenly, her eyes flitting from her hands to the holographic screen before her.  _ Huh. _

I tilt my head to the side as I watch Allura’s fingers dance before shrugging, “I mean… I guess. I don’t consider myself a rule follower but I’m not like, a  _ rebel  _ or anything. I think Keith’s got that title.” I joke with a slight aside, propping a foot up on the smooth surface beneath me as I lace my fingers on my knee, “I think you’re kind of like that, too.”

She looks over at me with surprise, raising an eyebrow with complete shock, “Me?”

I nod, “Yeah. You’re like a cliff face against a pounding sea, you stand resolute regardless of circumstance.” 

Allura raises an eyebrow in shock, staring at her hands for a moment before she continues to type, “I’ve never been told that before.”

“Yeah. I mean it as a compliment, just so we’re clear.” I follow up with a sheepish grin, moving to sit cross legged on the surface, much to my legs’ pleasure. I hiss and rub the sore muscles of my thighs with the palms of my hands to get them to  _ fucking quit being babies, we sustained a worse beating from Haxus but  _ **_now_ ** _ you’re complaining _ . _ Well… okay, it was worse but I also fought Allura for hours rather than minutes so maybe I’m not  _ **_that_ ** _ pathetic. _

“Will, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Allura says after a moment and when I look up I realize she was watching me do this, “How have you been feeling since you performed the quintessence transmutation the day before yesterday?”

I rest my chin in my hand as I move my fingertips to my neck; now that I can feel the lack of presence from the White Lion’s stone I feel strangely naked, like I’m going commando. “Honestly? Just fine.” I shrug nonchalantly as I let my hand drop to my lap, “When I woke up yesterday I felt completely alright, I think the rest the day before really helped.” I smile a little with fondness at Allura, “I never thanked you for keeping me company then. I really appreciated it.”

Allura smiles shyly, glancing over at me between her fingertips dancing on the holographic screens, “I understand how boring it can be, being told to rest and rest without company or things to do.”

I blink in confusion for a moment before my lips form an ‘o’, “Right… from after the ritual thing you did that fixed up the Balmera, you probably got super bored, huh? I’m sorry I didn’t think to keep you company then.” 

Allura shrugs with a slight chuckle, “It’s quite alright, I believe you were in a healing pod, anyway.” 

I laugh slightly with a shake of my head, “Ha, yeah, just before the Castle tried to kill us all. Good times.” I tilt my head to the side with a sudden, curious question rising to the forefront, “What did you do, anyway? Back on the Balmera to heal it up like that?”

Allura speaks without looking away from her hands’ work, “Balmeran crystals are so special and highly sought because they are one of the few physical embodiments of raw quintessence that occurs naturally. When taking a crystal from a Balmera, one is essentially taking a portion of its life force.” Allura pauses, her head tilted to the side in thought, “When obtaining a crystal Alteans would perform a ritual of emparting a portion of our own quintessence to the Balmera so it is an equal exchange.” Allura pauses, her voice suddenly getting a hardened edge, “That’s why the Balmera nearly died. The Galra were taking the Balmera’s crystals without returning the life it took.” 

I watch Allura’s profile as she examines a series of moving bars on the hologram, I speak slowly to ensure I understand, “So that ritual you did… you used your excess quintessence to return to the Balmera all that it lost.” Allura nods mutely, and I can’t help but let out a breath of amazement, “How much quintessence do you have that you were able to restore an  _ entire planet’s _ ?” 

Allura shakes her head slightly, “It wasn’t just mine; I used a lot of the natural quintessence locked away in the Castle, residual energies from all the wormhole jumps my father and I made as well as the natural amount residing in its walls, and channeled it into the Balmera as well. A lot of quintessence had built up over the years, and that is how I was able to help heal the Balmera without completely destroying the wells of quintessence in the Castle. I alone could never have restored it, even with the excess I have.” 

I tilt my head to the side with curiosity, continuing in a low tone, “Sorry, do you mind that I’m kind of interrogating you? I just have so many questions, and it’s never really a good time to ask them but now that we’re here…?” Allura glances over at me with a raised eyebrow and an expectant look so I pursue the question forming in my mind, “Okay so I’ve been wanting to ask you about your excess quintessence. Is that why you are the only one who can make wormhole jumps?”

Allura smiles a bit sadly to herself, her hands stalling where they hover over the holographic panel, “To use the teludav effectively, one’s quintessence must be transferred into the Balmeran crystal and directed through the machine. Alteans have a naturally high amount of quintessence which is how we were able to develop this technology, but my father and I both had even more than what is natural. We tied our life forces to the Castle’s teludav because doing so diminishes the amount of our own quintessence required from us due to the attunement, and because of our excess we are not as drained after a jump. This allowed us to make longer, more frequent jumps in a short span of time.” 

I nod in understanding, looking down at the floor as I digest the new information, “So technically anyone could do it, though? If they could channel their quintessence into the Castle?”

Allura shakes her head, “Most have to have a talent to channel quintessence; only Altean alchemists have ever been able to train themselves to do so without a natural ability. And on the Castle I don’t think it’s especially possible because the quintessence required is far greater than what most possess because the Balmeran crystal powers both the ship  _ and  _ the teludav, so less of its power can be used in the actual process.”

I shake my head a little with a low whistle, “Wow, that’s insane.” I sit up a little as Allura dismisses the hologram, moving to kneel instead and open a panel under the desk. I keep my feet out of the way as she peers within, and after a moment’s silence I continue with my questions, “Okay, so in light of that… when we first met you guys Coran said that you are the key to finding the lions because your quintessence is tied to theirs. How is that so?” I wave my hands vaguely in the air as I imagine it visually, “Is it like when two things that have resonant frequencies vibrate when they are close to each other, like tuning forks?”

Allura pauses and looks up at me for a moment, her eyes are dark like sky just before dusk in the shadow of the desk before she speaks again, “After my father became the Red Paladin, he commissioned for the Castle of Lions to be constructed as a safe haven for the Voltron Lions. They have natural regenerative abilities, especially when they are bonded with their Paladin and can feed off of one another’s quintessences, but within a castle that hums with quintessence these abilities are enhanced to be far quicker and self regulating. When my father tied his quintessence to the Castle’s so wormhole jumping would be less taxing upon him, his quintessence became thusly tied to the lions. And when I tied my quintessence to it, so too did mine.”

“Holy shit.” I mutter under my breath, looking at the far wall as my head begins to spin. “That’s so… wow.” I look down at the top of Allura’s head as she messes with something beneath the desk and speak again in an awed tone, “So your quinessence got tied to the Castle because you’ve got a natural excess and that makes wormholing easier.” Allura nods so I continue with a pensive expression, “So… how did you learn that you had an excess? I know you said it’s the thingy, the Mark of the Chosen, but when did that show up? Did everyone know when you were born, or was it something that became apparent as you grew up?”

Allura glances up at me briefly as she sits back and closes the panel beneath the desk, her gaze is soft and far away as she speaks, “It’s a bit of both. I was born with the excess; my mother always told me that when she held me in her arms for the first time that my markings immediately appeared and glowed with raw quintessence, which is one of the signs of the Chosen.” Allura looks down at her hands resting on her knees, her voice suddenly growing rather small, “I learned that I had the ability to transfer my quintessence to others without affecting myself when I was still quite young, I believe I was barely twenty. I’d just learned to walk, and my mother told me that one day I found a half dead khalvie, and when I laid my hands upon it its life was restored and its color changed from red to blue. Alchemists can do it with training, but it comes very… naturally to me.” 

When Allura looks up at me I see tears glimmering in her eyes and suddenly my heart surges. I get off of the desk and move to sit beside her, resting a hand over hers where it rests on her knees as she uses the other to wipe at her eyes. “I’m sorry, I…” Allura takes a shaky breath, her shoulders curling inwards as she speaks in a trembling voice, “I just remembered… I never got to say goodbye to her. And neither did my father.” Tears begin to fall down Allura’s face in earnest as she hangs her head, her nose curled as she tries to fight them back.  _ Oh. Oh, Allura…  _

My heart aches looking at her.  _ I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I pushed you with questions that brought this pain upon you, I… fuck, I wish I could take it back. I would give anything to alleviate this pain from you. I don’t know how to say it, God why can’t I articulate? Why can’t I open my mouth and tell you?  _ “I’m sorry.” I whisper in a gentle tone, moving to rest my hand on her shoulder and smooth my thumb over her flight suit beneath the armor on her biceps. 

Allura looks over at me after a moment of breathing, she seems to recollect herself with a square of her shoulders as she takes one, large, steady breath, “Thank you, I… I’m alright, now.” I let my hand fall as she takes another deep breath, after a pause she rises to her feet and rests a hand on the desk above us, “Hopefully the rerouting I just performed will keep the power circulating through the system and recharge the teludav. Using it so frequently after a thousand years of solitude has delivered it quite a beating.”

I stand up as well, looking a her with a soft gaze as I murmur, “You know… I’m proud of you, Allura.” 

She pauses, looking at her hand and then at me with a confused expression, “I… Excuse me?”

“I said I’m proud of you.” I repeat, flickering my gaze across her perplexed features as I continue in a gentle tone, “You are the strongest person I think I’ve ever met. No one I know could ever bear the pain that you do, and you bear it with grace that is just… unmatched.” I let out a soft sigh, my eyebrows knit together as I let my gaze drop, “I wish I could help. You shouldn’t have to bear it alone.” 

Allura is quiet for a long time, and after a moment I look up and meet her gaze. Her lilac pink pupils are locked squarely on mine and her expression is vulnerable and open, after a long stretch of silence she speaks quietly, “I’m not truly alone. Not anymore.” I blink and raise an eyebrow as she holds her elbows in her hands, “It’s been such a short time, but… I’m fond of you and the other paladins. I consider you as close as family, after all we’ve been through together, and after all you have done and sacrificed for the universe… and for me.” Her eyes close and her eyebrows furrow, a gentle, pained expression.

I can’t help but beam at her, genuine warmth spreads like liquor through my veins, “I know I speak for all of us when I say we feel the same way.” I laugh softly, leaning on the desk with my palms flat on the smooth, cool surface, “I was thinking about this last night, actually, as I was trying to fall asleep… At just how quickly I’ve grown so close to you all over the past month.” I look up at Allura with a slight smile, “I consider myself an open hearted person, I want to make sure everyone is happy no matter who they are but with you guys… I’ve never grown so close to a group of people in such a short amount of time. I mean, don’t get my wrong, the trauma bonding we had along the way definitely contributed but…” I pause, my gaze listing to the side as a continuing smile lingers upon my lips, “I feel just as you do. I can’t imagine what life was like now before I met you all… even despite all the pain we’ve suffered along the way, I’ve never wished that this all had never happened… That I never found the others in that cave on Earth, that I never became the White Paladin despite how often times I think I shouldn’t have or don’t deserve to be… because then I wouldn’t have met you all. You.” My voice hitches suddenly and my eyes widen.  _ Oh geez. I just verbally splurged all kinds of shit. Jesus Christ. I’m becoming really bad at keeping a lid on the stuff that comes out of my mouth. _

Allura meets my gaze with such warmth I feel some sort of emotion swell in my throat, and after a moment I laugh awkwardly, “Wow, the Sappy Train really docked its station on us tonight, huh?” 

Allura smiles, a beautiful sight like a rising moon upon the crests of the sea as she chuckles to herself, “I suppose it has.” Allura lets out a soft breath and closes her eyes, her smile continues to linger, “I’m grateful you are here. You are right, in what you said before… It’s strange for the Castle to be so empty after your presence here for so long.”

I nod in agreement with a slow exhale, “Yeah. It’s weird. But hey, just one more day left!” I tap on the holographic panel next to us and see the time displayed. 7pm.  _ Holy shit, already?  _ “Holy fuck. Where’d the time go?” I mutter, flickering my gaze back to Allura with a teasing grin.

She blinks at me stupidly before she points to the clock, “It’s right there.” 

I look at her and she at me and immediately I bust out in laughter, “I … never mind. Colloquial miscommunication is my favorite thing about the transladazines, I’ve gotta say. Wanna go get some dinner?” 

Allura gives me a strange, bemused expression before she nods, and together we head to the kitchen. Fortunately my muscles seem to have loosened up enough for the trip not to be agonizing. Night has fallen in the Castle and we make the trip by the light of the blue power strips in the walls, and as we sit down in the lit kitchen I reflect back on the day,  _ how time seems to fly spending it with Allura.  _

As I eat I realize that for all the meals we’ve had today, we’ve been interrupted by the others hailing us as they head to and arrive on Olkarion. First it was Coran right after breakfast, then the Blue Lion after our late lunch…  _ It’s been over twenty four hours. Why haven’t we heard from Hunk and Keith?  _

I voice my concerns to Allura, “We haven’t heard anything from Hunk and Keith, have we?” 

Allura glances over at me as she settles her spoon in her bowl before she shakes her head, “I’ve received no hailing frequencies from the Yellow Lion.” 

I frown, swallowing on the growing lump in my throat, “I hope they’re alright.” 

Allura rises from her seat, taking her bowl to the washer before she turns to me, “I think I’m going to retire early tonight. Rest well, Will.” I blink and wave as she turns and strides out with purpose, leaving me alone in the kitchen.  _ That was kind of abrupt. Was it something I said?  _

Puzzled, I put away my dish before I leave the room to head back to mine. Out in the blackened hall, now that I’m alone in the darkness, my heart leaps in my throat. I’ve never been scared of the dark, but for some reason tonight each shadow lurking in my peripheral seems to flinch, the halls seem longer and far,  _ far  _ spookier. 

_ Fuck this.  _

Despite how it hurts my body to do so I book it for my room, and once I’m inside I switch on the light with stumbling fingers; after a relieved exhale when the door closes behind me I flop on my bed, looking up at the ceiling to ease the racing of my pulse. I’m tired as hell, my body fucking hurts, but after that run I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep for a hot minute, so I roll over in search for something to occupy me when I see my stack of books on the shelf. Grinning, I reach over and grab my notebook, flipping to the last pages and read my recount of events, the first phrase I hitch on on the last page before my dream scribbles catches my eye,  _ ‘When we were leaving for the mall Allura told me that she could tell by the way I look at him that I like him. I’m really beginning to wonder just how idle these feelings are, if they’re really coming across as the actions that soulmates make towards each other, because that’s what she’d compared me to. Her mother and her father. Alteans have soulmates. That sounds so cliche, but that’s not how humans work. But… I don’t have an idle crush on him anymore. It’s stronger now. I think I just have to accept that and try to keep its effects on the positive side since trying to suppress these feelings sure as hell ain’t working.’  _

_ Oh right. I’m gay. Fuck.  _ I furrow my eyebrows as I continue before I realize that I had stopped writing the day we got back from the space mall.  _ Oh damn. Well, I certainly have a lot of catching up to do.  _

I pull my pen out of the spiral and write. 

_ ‘It took us 7 days to get to the Blade of Marmora’s base yesterday, technically that being the seventh. First day Shiro worked out asses off and day two he was gonna do the same, but it was then that Hunk, Pidge, and I realized that something must be off if he was working us to death like he was. I went to talk to him about it, and he told me it’s basically because what happened with Ulaz; in that we weren’t able to defeat that ro-beast ourselves without his help, and he blamed himself for it. It really broke my heart, I’m going to lie. It really hurts me to think about the pain Shiro has had to endure since he got captured by the Galra, now he has something else to nag and pull at his soul when he doesn’t deserve that. Shiro honestly deserves to much more than the world can give, but honestly I’ll settle for him to just be able to go back to Earth and be at peace when this is all over. He’s had basically two years of torment from the Galra without ceasing, torment that branded him just as much as they branded him.’  _ I pause, the shine of the ink like stars in my eyes as I stare at the words. Pursuing a new formulation of thoughts I continue to write,  _ ‘Yet despite all that’s happened to him he still was more than willing to embrace the Blade of Marmora as a part of the Voltron Alliance. But I’ll get to that.’  _

I roll my shoulders and shift position in my bed to lie on my stomach, retracing my line of thoughts to the days prior before I continue to write,  _ ‘Pidge and Hunk got mad at me that day because I forgot Kevin was able to send a message to Earth. I still don’t blame them, I was pissed at myself too to the point I went to the bridge and tried to get him to do it again but he wouldn’t budge. I don’t understand what the fuck he is or what his purpose is or whatever the fuck, despite the revelations I’ve come to talking about it with the others and stuff. It was at that time Allura actually told me about quintessence transmutation because I’d asked her about what the fuck is Kevin. Apparently it’s what Altean alchemists would study to try and manipulate life force or whatever to ‘transmute’ stuff, like how the Olkari can make anything out of metal or plants but with quintessence it can  _ _ literally _ _ make anything. The Olkari can make a super computer out of a block of steel but someone who can transmute quintessence can make a tree out of stone, blood from water… a small dragon from air.’ _

_ ‘But we couldn’t figure out how it worked until Coran and Allura brought us into the teludav chamber and told us the wormholer could never work again because an alchemist created thing had been broken, it was the key thing that made it so the Castle could still be powered while also having a teludav aboard. That was when my stone decided to be fucking useful, it somehow transmuted my own quintessence or whatever into a new one, a disc something. That’s what Allura said, and I gotta say it fucking sucked. It felt like someone reached into my arms and ripped out my veins like powering up a weedeater. I felt like shit for the whole rest of the day until I went to bed that night. Luckily for me, because we got to the Blade of Marmora’s base the next morning and I’m glad I had the restorance of energy.’ _

_ ‘Keith’s birthday also apparently passed a while ago, October 23rd. We celebrated it on the 29th, two days before we got to the Blade of Marmora’s base two days ago… so that makes today November 2nd. Wow. Time flies. But we basically threw him a pool party. I had no fucking clue that the Castle had a pool, like how ridiculous is that? I mean it makes sense, it’s a Castle, but it’s also a battle cruiser so like, what the fuck, you know?’  _

I feel my cheeks warm as I recollect the day, a sudden knot tying in my throat as I continue to write,  _ ‘I definitely got some gay feelings for this fucking guy that day. Like that’s new. But I really shouldn’t be thinking about that now, we’re trying to stop Zarkon and all, and we’re closer than ever before, but that’s not all of it, I think. There’s more, it’s more complex now. It started at the Blade of Marmora’s base yesterday… It’s when Shiro and I watched them beat Keith to a pulp for some trial to find out where Keith’s knife came from, because his knife had the sigil upon it that the Blade’s blades have (haha, Blade’s blades). That’s when we found out that somewhere in Keith’s family tree is a Galra… That  _ _ Keith _ _ is Galra.’  _

I pause and look at the phrase upon the page. I’ve been thinking about this since I watched the knife grow into a sword in Keith’s hands, looking at his wide eyes as the news hit him as hard as it hit Shiro and I. At least… me.  _ ‘I’m so angry at myself for caring about that.’  _ I write the words as I think them, gritting my teeth,  _ ‘I shouldn’t care. Lance, much to my shock, was the voice of reason when the information came out yesterday when the Blades were to come to the Castle after we went to their base, - which I forgot to mention is in the middle of two black holes and a fucking blue sun, and I  _ _ wish _ _ I was making that up, it was ridiculously insane. Keith told everyone at breakfast before I arrived, I know because I walked in on Allura’s face being so stunned and angered that I just knew. I didn’t expect her to be so upset about it, but… I mean, of all of us I think she has a right to be. Not with Keith, specifically, but she has a right to hate the Galra; they’ve literally taken  _ _ everything _ _ from her: her family, her home, her entire civilization and race… Gone, because of Zarkon’s cruelty. I can imagine it must be whiplash for her to know that Keith was one all along without our knowledge. But Lance… Lance said the most profound thing. “Who cares that he’s Galra,” he said, “He’s still just Keith.”’ _

I shift until I’m laying back on the pillows, resting my notebook in my lap as my pen flies across the page, barely keeping up with my thoughts,  _ ‘I didn’t think about that really. Until now. When the Blades came to the Castle we came up with a plan to defeat Zarkon, and frankly… it’s brilliant. I think we may have something that can do it. But it required us all to split up across the universe to get a bunch of materials, then we’re meeting back up on Olkarion, I’m with Allura in the Castle headed to the Balmera for a big ass crystal while Hunk and Keith are out looking for scaultrite on whatever the fuck a Weblum is. Shiro, Pidge, and Lance went and broke this weird guy, Slav, out of prison. He looks like a blue weasel with a bunch of arms. Luckily they’re alright, they reported in to us at around 2 today. But Hunk and Keith have not. And it’s been over twenty four hours.’  _

Fear wells in my throat, sudden and terrifying and seizing as I stare at the words, it suddenly becomes terrifyingly real and concrete. My gaze is listless for a long moment, I struggle to take soft, shaking breaths before I can steel myself to continue. _‘I don’t know what I’ll do if something happened to them. Especially Keith. I’ve still got this unsettled feeling, and the more I think about it… I think it’s because we learned Keith is Galra. I told myself that it doesn’t matter, but I guess… maybe it does bother me. I don’t think it’s just that though, that’s just a symptom of the greater unsettlement I feel for how hard I fell for someone I didn’t know as well as I thought. The strangest part is, now, thinking about losing him, I realize that I_ _still_ _like him. A lot. My feelings haven’t diminished in the slightest, just thinking about him nearly dying back at the base… I don’t know, I’m just really bothered by everything all of a sudden.’_

_ ‘The last thing I really said to Keith was the night before Kolivan rolled up, when I stayed up waiting for him to get out of the pod so he wouldn’t wake up alone. He’d tried to talk to me about what happened at the BOM’s base but something made me interrupt him. I told him to focus on the mission and what happened doesn’t matter anymore.’  _ I don’t even pause as the words spill out of my hands, _ ‘I can’t believe I was so  _ _ fucking selfish _ _.’  _

I feel something hot in my eyes, I choke on a salty lump forming in my throat as I write with angry dashes and swirls,  _ ‘I shouldn’t care he’s Galra, but I got too caught up in my thoughts and kept thinking that he was somehow a different person because of it. Everything I liked about him, his smirk and his eyes and his stupid hair and even worse jacket, it made me think that despite how much I care about him that I actually didn’t know him at all; that I had just assigned him traits and then fell for them, idealizing him, making him into something he’s not. That’s what made me interrupt him. I didn’t want to hear excuses… I’d made up my mind.’  _

_ ‘But now he and Hunk have been MIA for over twenty four hours and the last thing I did was shut him down and tell him how he feels about newfound heritage doesn’t matter. God know what he thought of me after that. But what’s even worse is that he tried to reach out to me and I failed him. I spat it back out in his face and told him to keep it to himself, and I can’t fucking believe I did that. That that may be the last thing I ever did.’  _ A drop of water falls on the top of the page and smears some of the ink. I sniff and wipe my eyes angrily and then lean back on the pillows, holding my notebook on my knees as I keep writing like my life depends on it,  _ ‘I shouldn’t think like that. Hunk and Keith are going to be fine. I’m sure they’re just trying to hunt down the Weblum or whatever, they’re going to be fine. They’re resilient, they’re Paladins of Voltron. They’ll be fine.’  _

I let out a deep sigh and let my head rest against the pillows, looking up at the ceiling. The lights are bright and begin to hurt my eyes, and now my thoughts are beginning to melt with exhaustion. I look back down at the page and write, _one last thing,_ _‘I don’t think I care that Keith is Galra. I was just worried the Keith I started liking wasn’t the real Keith but… It is though, isn’t it? I fell for Keith, fucking hard for that matter, and I still can’t stop thinking about him or worrying about him… Keith’s Galra, but that doesn’t matter because he’s still Keith. My Keith. And that bastard better come back to me, wherever he and Hunk are fucking around in some galaxy far away. I’ve got some apologizing to do…’_

_ ‘And he’s still got my lion’s stone.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for existential crises! They never fucking end!  
> But hey, the kid's trying to come to terms with his grown racism towards the Galra, he's trying... he's a little confused but he's got the spirit you know what I'm saying?  
> Now if only Allura could follow his footsteps.


	12. Return to the Balmera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey from the Blade of Marmora's base to the Balmera isn't terribly long in terms of the distance Will has traveled in the past, but alone in the Castle with only Allura and the Altean mice as company he's suddenly confronted with the reality of how quickly he's bonded with the other paladins. He can't even imagine a time they weren't in his life, and now that he's separated from them for a few days it leads to a re-evaluation of himself, and his relationship with the other paladins.  
> Except, of course, when you're a paladin of Voltron, nothing stays peaceful and quiet for long.  
> \---  
> **Warning: vague descriptions of violence, mentions of blood, panic attacks

When I wake up the next morning my entire body groans in complaint at being alive, for a long while I just lay there and ache and hurt and internally complain about the unfairness of the world. At least until I’m able to sit up, in which case the process begins all over again. It takes me ages, but once I’m standing everything seems to fall into place as I tread down the hall.  _ Alright, get Kaltenecker some more hay and water if necessary, then shower, then breakfast. God, I’m hungry. God, everything hurts and I’m dying. I am the reason why people think the gays are dramatic. _

It takes me an embarrassingly long time for my limbs to wake up and realize that we’re still living and need to do things, but by the time I’ve given Kaltenecker one last affectionate pet and head to the bathroom for a shower they seem to complain more like children after being awake for too long rather than screaming in agony for  _ daring  _ to be  _ moved _ . I take my time with it, stretching the soreness in my arms and back and  _ everything  _ in an attempt to ease the pains but now more than ever I wish that I had something to listen to music. I don’t remember ever having such a stretch of time without something to listen to, I had headphones and wore them religiously back on Earth despite how out of fashion they are but I couldn’t not go a day without some music, especially on my rides to and from school.  _ But I left them home that day because I was tired and in a rush. God, I have never regretted something as much as I regret that.  _

Once out I go for some breakfast I find I’m alone in the kitchen when I walk in. As I fill up my goo dish I tap a nearby panel by the door to check the time and see it’s actually really late in the day, just past noon.  _ Oh, shit. Allura’s probably long eaten breakfast by now and is somewhere in the Castle. When I’m done eating I should go find her.  _

And so I do. I eat pretty quick and then as I put my dish away I recheck the time when a thought occurs to me and causes some reconsideration.  _ Perhaps she’ll be wanting lunch… it is past noon…  _

I fill up a bowl of goo and take it with me as I head out. 

With the lights on in the Castle halls the place feels a whole lot less spooky than it was last night, but still unbearably empty and quiet. I could hear the Altean mice’s pulses in the walls if I were to listen hard enough I wager, I find myself walking a little louder than necessary just to fill the silence with  _ something _ . Quiet has never bothered me back on Earth, my parents habitually wouldn’t be home until late at night so I would usually have run of the place when I got home from school but on the Castle the silence is just so…  _ complete. _

_ Alright, so if I were an Altean princess, where would I go alone in a thousand year old Castle at noon on a… what day is it again? November 3rd?  _

I walk around for a long time. I check the teludav chamber, nothing, the engine room, the bridge, the training deck, before I resolve to go find her bedroom. I’ve never gone in that part of the Castle but I know vaguely where it lies, just past where her father’s memory room was. I make my way there and turn down the hall before I come across a large, grand door, what I figure to be her chambers because  _ yeah she’s a princess, of course she probably has the room with the big door.  _ I reach up and rap on it softly but I hear no sound within. I knock again just to be sure but no one answers me, so I turn away with a sigh and head back where I came.  _ Alright, not over here… Time to get creative.  _ I check the hangers, nothing, I check the lounges scattered throughout the Castle, nothing, I even head to the infirmary and find nothing. She’s nowhere to be found.  _ Fucking hell. Where haven’t I checked? I looked in the training deck, the hangers, the bridge, her room… I haven’t checked down by the cryopods, though. I suppose I could check there, don’t know why she’d be down there but it’s worth a shot.  _ I head down in that direction, running a hand through my hair as I go.  _ I’ve been walking for ages and my legs are not thanking me, if I don’t find her there I’m just gonna head back to the kitchen. Maybe we just passed like airplanes in a storm; it’s not a crazy idea, considering how huge the Castle is…  _

I walk into the long hallway of cryopods and my memory suddenly jerks, I hesitate where I stand in the entrance of the hall. The lights are dimmer here than in the rest of the Castle and it makes the space feel all the more eerie, no light comes from any of the pods so they look like massive test tubes lining the hall, like something from an old cloning facility. I find myself coming to a stop before one of the pods, the only pod that is missing its glass casing.  _ From when Shiro ejected Sendak into space.  _

_ A blessing in disguise. I don’t know what we would’ve done with him after all that. Kept him as our prisoner in the Castle? For how long? What would we do with him after we had the information we needed? Fuck. Is it really messed up that I’m glad Shiro threw him into space so we wouldn’t have to worry about him? I don’t think I would’ve been able to sleep at night, knowing he’s in the Castle… haunting us, ready to hunt…  _

I look to the side with a shudder when my gaze hitches on the glass container next to the pod where Sendak once laid. It’s filled with light blue fluid that glows softly like the strips in the walls, but as I look around I see that this one is the only pod that has light emanating from the liquid next to it. Despite my better judgement, curiosity gets the best of me and I approach, narrowing my eyes at its contents. At first it just looks like water, water that glows an eerie blue but nonetheless water, but within I realize that there isn’t just water in there; there are these little inky spirals, moving slowly like snakes in the water in and out of one another. Below at the bottom of the container is a small blue button with an Altean word I’ve never seen before. 

_ … This is probably a bad idea.  _

I touch the button. 

The floor behind me suddenly rises, and I blink as I step out of the way when a low pedestal rises from the floor, just like the pedestal Allura made out of her circle the day before yesterday to project holographic images of Zarkon’s vessel and of the teludav. Soft blue light flashes as a hologram appears and I let out a sharp cry of alarm, dropping the bowl of goo on the ground with a massive  _ crash.  _ I stumble backwards, my shoes crushing the broken pieces of the bowl into the floor as absolute and complete terror leaps in my throat. 

The holographic figure of Sendak peers down at me with a studious gaze where he stands a full head and shoulders above me like the giant he was in life. He looks the same, standing with his shoulders back in that black armor with the gold eyes on the chest that I realize now all commanders of Zarkon’s probably wear, as the commander back on Olkarion had the same armor. He even has his prosthetic hand resting at his side, almost gracing the metal beneath his feet,  _ the same hand he used to torture Shiro and I.  _

“What the hell?” I stammer, looking at him with wide eyes. It’s a bad hologram, it keeps zapping in and out of focus and despite the blue light that makes his form I can’t help but wonder if the gold glow in his eyes I see is imaginary. “What the fuck are you doing here?” My voice shakes and I can’t control my words

I jolt and take a startled step back as the hologram speaks, “I am Commander Sendak, a royal officer to the Galra Empire. My mission is to serve Zarkon for the glory of Galra.”

My entire body seizes at the sound of his voice, despite it coming from a communicator in the hologram’s platform, and without my consent I start to shake. I want to turn and run or find a way to turn off the hologram but all I can do is stare into the hologram’s disinterested eyes in horror and shake and  _ feel the iron bite of the prod ripping into my side and pulsing electricity through me, my mouth tastes like blood- _

“Will!” I start so violently I take several steps back, looking behind me as Allura rushes into the room. She looks at me and then the hologram before she speaks in a tone that’s almost too fast for me to follow, “What are you doing down here? Why did you activate Sendak’s memories?”

I return my gaze to Sendak’s and fear climbs in my throat, if he were to so much as sneeze I would bolt and never look back, I can’t even find it in me to speak. Allura comes into my peripheral with her gaze on me before she reaches down and touches a part of the pedestal. Sendak’s image zaps and cuts out, the circle sinks into the floor. Although the immediate threat is gone the terror that grips me tightly in its grasp does not _ , just like the kind of vice grip his hand had on me as he sneered, “I almost hope the other Paladins come-” _

“Will, are you alright?” Allura’s hands rest on my shoulders and when I blink I see her looking at me with worry etched into her features, her eyes are startlingly blue and they bring me enough out of my head to get my tongue to work again. 

“I…” I swallow, taking a raspy breath, “I-I was looking for you. I couldn’t find you anywhere, I… I was gonna… bring you lunch…” I gesture to the broken pieces of the bowl on the ground, leaving large splashes of green goo on the floor. I see my hands are shaking as I try to get a hold of myself, grabbing at strands of my dignity as I speak, “I dunno, I touched a button without thinking and I - I’m sorry, I-”

“Will, it’s alright.” Allura turns me towards her and I start a little when she holds my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her gaze at her fully. “It’s okay. You’re alright.” 

I look at her, I mean  _ really  _ look at her, and feel a salty stone rest in the pit of my throat. She looks worried, lines have begun to form in her brow from the amount of times she’s furrowed it and frowned, I rest a hand over hers where it holds my jaw.  _ She was the one who saved me when we recaptured the Castle, well… they did, I didn’t. She was the one who held me up and carried me to the pods, it was my blood that smeared on her hands and her armor.  _

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes to refocus myself, I open them again when Allura’s thumb brushes my skin. Strangely this settles me, and after a moment I step forward and rest my head on her shoulder, wrapping my arms around her and clinging onto the back of her dress tighter than I mean to. Soft words come out as Allura hesitantly rests her hands on the front of my shoulders, “Thank you.” I mutter almost incomprehensibly, “I’m sorry, I just… thank you.”

Allura’s fingertips tap on my collarbone, and when I pull away she keeps her hands there with a gentle, worried look etched into her features, “What are you thanking me for?”

I take a slow, deep breath and after a moment I’m able to produce a surprisingly genuine, if vulnerable smile, “I dunno. For finding me, I guess.” I flicker my gaze to the seamless floor where the circle rose and let out a breath, “I didn’t know that would happen.” 

Allura nods, her hands dropping to her sides as her gaze follows mine, “We still have Sendak’s memories stored in the Castle, but after the incident with Zarkon…” She pauses, her eyebrows drawing together in a furrow, “It became a lower priority to go looking through his memories. And now with the plan, it seems its presence is almost null. With Zarkon gone, we will be able to better unify a front to drive away his forces from all Galra occupied planets.” 

“Oh.” I mumble, crossing my arms as I shudder, slightly shaking my head, “Well, at least there’s that.” I let out a breath as I look to the goo on the floor, raising my head to Allura with a sheepish expression, “Sorry about dropping the food goo.”

Allura waves me off with a dismissive smile, “Don’t apologize. I have already eaten lunch anyhow.” She turns, her hand touching my wrist briefly before she begins to walk out of the room. I pause, looking at the floor where Sendak once was before I whirl and follow after her quickly. 

“I believe you asked me for some zero gravity maneuvering training, if I remember correctly?” Allura asks with a raised eyebrow, peering over at me as we exit the cryolab chambers. I nod, so she continues ask she marches at a brisk pace down the hall, “Excellent. I need to readjust the flaxums on a part of the particle barrier pylons on the shell of the Castle. Come with me, this will provide you ample practice.”

I bite my lip nervously before I nod, “Fuck, alright. Thank God we did something like this before Olkarion, otherwise this would be scary as hell.”

Allura chuckles with a slight shake of her head, “Don’t worry. You’re a fast learner, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it before you know it.” 

“Well, at least one of us believes in me.” I joke with a slight jesting grin, despite how fake it feels. I break off from her when we get to the hangers to get my armor on, the darkness of the room feels surprisingly total until I manage to flick on the light. I take deep, shaking breaths to settle the continuous pounding in my chest, once, twice, thrice, until the tremor I can feel in my hands ceases.  _ It’s okay. You’re alright. It was just a hologram. There is nothing to be afraid of. Stop being scared.  _ I tug on my armor quickly, and then leave to reconvene in the center where the surface projector drops. As we wait for the surface projector to rise from the floor I find my gaze wandering about, flickering across the color coded doors surrounding the hanger before it focuses on the yellow door. 

“Have Hunk and Keith hailed us yet?” I ask, looking over at Allura with a worried expression, the fear I’d suppressed suddenly rearing its ugly head all over again but it leaves a different, colder taste in my mouth.

She nods, “The Yellow Lion contacted me just before I found you.” 

Immediately I let out a sigh of relief, my shoulders immediately settling as we step into the projector, “So did they face any complications or something? Or did it really just take them that long to get the scaultrite? How long until they get to Olkarion?”

Allura glances over at me as she closes the doorway of the surface projector, putting on her helmet. I do the same, activating the oxygen, and when I hear her again it’s through the com, “The only complications were ones to be expected, for the most part. Hunk will be arriving to Olkarion in a few quintants.” 

“Oh, geez.” I murmur. The room makes a loud hissing noise as air begins to be sucked out slowly, so we’re not shot gunned out into space, and slowly the weightlessness comes, lifting my feet from the floor and dropping my gut to my knees.  _ Alright. This is it. Don’t get scared.  _ “Well, luckily we’ve got some time with the whole  _ building a huge teludav  _ thing. How long do you think that will take?” 

Allura turns to look at me, an eyebrow raised with a bemused smile teasing her lips, “On Altea it would take several buvarnes, but with the Olkari I predict it will take less than ten quintants… Are you just asking questions to put off your training?”

I pout a little, looking down at the floor as I keep myself as still as possible in the nothingness around us, “... Maybe.”

Allura shakes her head before she pushes off the wall slightly, now fully facing me as her hands brace on my shoulders, “First rule of moving in zero gravity that is most critical to understand is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you push an object with an amount of force…” She pushes her fingertips against my shoulders and we begin to pull away from one another slowly, she continues with a mentor’s tone, “The same force will be pushed back unto you.” 

I touch the wall behind me to still myself, pursing my lips, “So basketball’s impossible to play in space, I take it?”

Allura merely shakes her head at me as she presses a button by the doorway and with a snap it opens, revealing the darkness of space beyond. My heart stutters in my chest and suddenly I become keenly aware of how it’s just Allura and I, in zero gravity, about to move along the hull of the Castle to do some fucking flaxum whatever the fuck it is we’re doing.  _ I don’t think I’ve walked around in complete zero gravity without the rest of the group before. Closest time was walking on the moon with Keith like… a bajillion years ago. Jesus Christ. What I would tell my past self if I could…  _

“Next step is to know where you’re going, and only use the exact amount of force necessary to get there.” Allura speaks factually, and I watch her as she plants her feet on the wall and pushes herself outside, turning when she’s outside the projector and grabbing onto a series of rungs that rise along the side of the ship. 

“How do you know how much is necessary?” I ask with a slightly stressed tone, looking at her and then at the rungs.

“It’ll become instinctual with practice.” Allura answers before she makes a waving gesture for me to follow her, moving her way slowly up the rungs of the ladder.

“Oh great, helpful, thanks!” I call sardonically. I let out a pent up breath like a broken oxygen canister before I push gently off the wall of the surface projector, copying Allura and grabbing onto the rungs. I breathe again when I’m touching metal, and after a moment’s recollection of self I twist and move to follow Allura up the side of the moving ship. I can feel the thrusters humming beneath my hands but based on the areas around us I couldn’t even tell we were moving because there’s just…  _ nothing _ . Just stars. As far as the eye can see, so many stars it’s like dots of broken sea shells along the beach.  _ Even standing on a thing so massive it still feels so, so small. _

“The pylon we need to adjust is up here.” Allura pulls my attention back to the here and now, and I spot her already far up the Castle’s sleek white sides with her hands braced along its surface. I move to follow, moving slowly but steadily.  _ Equal and opposite, using just enough force…  _

I float up beside Allura where she hovers in front of a pylon protruding from the Castle, meticulously turning small knobs on the sides with the gaze of a surgeon. I touch the side of it to pull myself to a stop, letting out a slow breath as I watch her move, “How’s it working?”

Allura nods after a moment, “Just needs some recalibration…” She moves dials, touches knobs, and presses buttons until after what feels like ages she straightens and presses a button in the center of the pylon. With soft beeps the pylon falls back into the Castle, and when it sinks into the metal there isn’t even a seam to indicate that it’s there at all. “How are you feeling?” Allura asks, pulling my gaze to her’s. Her face is crystal through the clear glass of her visor, a raise in her eyebrow gives me a gentle and soft expression.

“Good!” I answer, letting out a sigh as I look out at the dark eternity of space beyond, “Much better. I’m feeling more scared than  _ beyond terrified  _ now.” I say with a joking grin thrown in her direction before gesturing from hence we came, “So, back inside?” 

Allura raises an eyebrow at me and nods, “Yes, back inside… But we’re going this way.” She touches the side of the ship and uses the tips of her gloves to glide down the surface like a seal coming upon a beach, moving towards the other end of the ship. I frown and look at my hands before attempting to mimic her movements; they’re small touches, it helps to build a little momentum while also maintaining some control since there is nothing to grab onto in the vicinity. “Why this way?” I venture, following her at a much slower pace but surprisingly the more I focus on the task at hand the easier it becomes.  _ Maybe I haven’t gotten the hang of it until now is because every time we’ve been out in dead space it’s been for some purpose that’s distracted me from focusing on moving around. Or I’m just too busy thinking “I don’t know what I’m doing!”  _

“More practice!” Allura declares brightly, to which I respond with an unamused groan. 

After what feels like years I breathe again once we’re back inside the surface projector, since we had to loop the long way around the main body of the Castle to return to it. When the gravity has been returned to normal I swear under my breath,  _ “Christ.”  _ I yank off my helmet once the doors into the hanger open, glancing over at Allura with a victorious smile, “Well, we did it! Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“Of course.” Allura says with a nod, flashing me a soft smile as she takes off her helmet as well. She uses a hand to brush her hair back and out of her face as the other holds her helmet on her hip, she glances over at me with a raised eyebrow, “So I say dinner is in order, yes?”

Immediately my stomach growls.  _ “Yes.” _

She smiles at me in a genuinely sweet manner, and I make a vague gesture towards my hanger as the surface projector sinks back into the floor, “I’m gonna take my armor off, see you in the kitchen.” Allura nods and leaves as I walk into the armory adjacent to my hanger to strip out of my armor. 

It’s so weird to move around without my lion’s stone. It’s become such a part of me that without it I feel strangely naked, but I only notice it when I’m taking clothing on or off.  _ I wonder if Keith’s wearing it right now. I wonder if it does anything when he wears it… I doubt it, it never does anything when I wear it… I wish I had been there when they called in, I wish I got the chance to see him, maybe ask if he’s got the damn thing. I wonder if he thinks about me when he’s holding onto it, I wonder if it gives him some sort of anchor or solace like it sometimes gives me…  _

_ Well that’s a pretty bold thing to say, especially since the last thing I did was… what I did.  _ I shudder and shake my head, a deep, hollow ache digging its grave in my chest and then leaving itself there without bothering to cover itself back up. With a downtrodden step I walk to the kitchen.

I come across Allura at the crossroads leading to it, she’s in a long tunic with loose sleeves and white leggings beneath. It’s so strange to see Allura in pants… even though they’re not really pants, they’re like, fake pants, but… with her armor on it’s one thing, but she always wears dresses when she’s not in it. This strange in between place that’s not out of character but also uncommon.  _ I know every girl on my field hockey team would kill to have legs like hers.  _

We walk into the dining room together and habitually get our bowls of food and sit down, eating in relative peace and quiet. “So we get to the Balmera tomorrow, right?” I ask with a raised eyebrow in her direction. 

She pauses to swallow before she nods, “Yes. Hopefully the Balmera has been able to generate a crystal of the size we need since we left.”

“Yeah, let’s hope.” I murmur, resting my chin in my hand as I regard the space between my bowl and the table, “What’ll we do if it hasn’t?”

Allura purses her lips before she lets out a soft sigh, “I suppose try and find another Balmera, but I expect that that that will be difficult, they were rare a thousand years ago, so I cannot imagine much has changed in that regard. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to traverse that juncture until it arrives.” 

I blink and raise an eyebrow at her, “ _ ‘Traverse that juncture until it arrives?’ _ That’s kind of a long winded way of saying ‘cross that bridge when we get there’, isn’t it?” 

Allura raises an eyebrow at me and purses her lips in slight bemusement, “... Yes?” 

I shrug nonchalantly in between bites, “Alright. Funky.” Allura sets her spoon in her bowl when she’s finished but she doesn’t rise, she rests her forearms on the table and leans on her elbows with her head hung. I stack my bowl on hers but she doesn’t move, so I raise an eyebrow at her with my head tilted to the side, “Hey, are you doing alright?”

Allura blinks as if she’s been awoken from her thoughts, turning to look at me with a gentle smile, “Oh, I’m fine.” Her face clears itself of most emotion as she regards me with concern, “I should be asking you that.” She turns slightly to face me more, her expression growing more soft and maternal than distracted as it was before.

I shrug, and though I want to say  _ nah it’s cool I’m fine  _ quickly and brush past it I don’t want her to think that I’m just putting on airs,  _ which I totally would be, but I don’t want to insult her like that when she’s clearly worried. _ I sigh after a moment and tap my fingertips on the table, “I guess I was just spooked was all.” I close my eyes, focusing on my breathing before I continue to speak, “I sometimes think that I’m over what happened on Arus but then I realize I’m not… but I wish I was. I wish I could just move on and not let it affect me when we’ve got more important shit to do, you know?”

Allura nods in agreement, letting out a similarly toned sigh as her hands fold in her lap, “I often times feel the same. Looking back on what’s happened, what’s happening now…” Her eyes close and as I turn to look at her more seriously she lets out a quiet breath that’s just above a whisper, “I’ve never felt so alone before.”

I reach out and gently cup her shoulder with my hand, she relaxes slightly beneath my touch but her eyes don’t reopen. I speak to her in a gentle tone, “Good thing we’re all in this together.” She opens her eyes after a moment, they shine like crystal clear waters of the sea as I murmur, “I know we aren’t much, we’re not your blood family, but… We’re still here for you. And not just me either, all of us.” I grip her shoulder a little tighter as her gaze focuses on me, “And we’re all gonna defeat Zarkon together to help bring the universe the peace it needs. So another planet or the people upon the planet will never suffer the same fate as Altea.”

Allura’s eyes glimmer, and after a moment of quiet her hands move to splay flat on the surface of the table, “You’re right.” She states with a sudden rise in tone, “We have allies. The Olkari, the Balmerans… and after Zarkon is defeated we will gain more and more allies until we can reform the coalition my father once had… we can restore peace to the universe.” 

I blink a little in surprise, “Er… yeah. I mean, that’s a tall order, but if anyone can do it I know we can.” I smile slightly at her, and the softness of her expression makes the worry that clenched ice around my heart settle a bit.  _ I kind of meant that in a more interpersonal manner, but sure, intergalactic application works, too. _

The door suddenly opens and we look up as the Altean mice race into the room and up to the table top, I clear my bowl out of the way as they move to stand in front of Allura. She watches them with undivided attention as they chatter until she suddenly beams in a complete switch of emotion, her hands clasping over her heart, “Oh, you’d do that? How kind of you!” She looks to me briefly as she rises, the mice climb up her wrists and move to her shoulders as she suddenly jumps with childish joy towards the doorway, “I must be off. Thank you for spending time with me today, Will. I’ll see you tomorrow!” I wave as she hurries off with an excited pep in her step, and before long I’m left alone in the kitchen. 

_ Damnit,  _ I curse internally to myself,  _ I’m gonna have to walk back to my room in the dark again.  _

I finish up my goo and put our dishes away before I steel myself to walk back to my room.  _ It’s fine. There’s no one in the Castle, it’ll be fine. That’s kind of the reason why it’s so terrifying, actually, but we don’t need to think about that, just focus on your breathing, and focus on walking like a  _ **_normal_ ** _ person back to my room…  _

After hyping myself up, I stride out the open doors of the kitchen and hustle down the hall towards my room. 

My heart is in the back of my throat as I go, within seconds I’m moving faster until I start to walk as fast as humanly possible, every shadow seems colder, the walls are taller, and now I  _ swear  _ I can see golden eyes peering around every corner, a menacing smile here, the crackle of electricity there.  _ I’m just seeing things ‘cause I’m scared, I’m just seeing things ‘cause I’m scared-  _

I turn down the hall where my room lies and bolt, I slam the door open and duck inside to slap the door shut again and only when the light is on in my room do I settle, taking rapid breaths as I slide down the smooth metal of my doorway.  _ Jesus Christ.  _

_ I can’t wait until the others are back.  _

I sit there for a while, just trying to calm the racing strokes of my heart until I can breathe like a normal person again. After some time I rise to my feet and dust myself off, letting out a soft breath as I move about slowly to get ready for bed, only checking the time once I’m under the covers. 10pm. I close my eyes and hug a pillow to my chest, keeping my breath slow and even. After a little bit sleep still doesn’t come so I turn off the light and try again. 

I open my eyes and tap the holographic panel for a time check. 11:30.  _ Fucking hell. _

_ I’m just not tired yet.  _

I sit up and glare at the darkness of the room, wondering what the fuck to do with my time before my gaze rests on the guitar in the far corner.  _ Oh, excellent idea, good thinking, self.  _ I snatch it up and then lay back down on my bed, strumming quietly with my eyes closed. My soreness has faded significantly but with my arms out like this, holding the neck after the emotional stress and the literal stress of zero gravity walking… my muscles are not thanking me. Also the absolute ass whooping Allura gave me yesterday.  _ Damn. Allura sure is strong as fuck.  _

_ I wonder if that’s something biological. Alteans are an alien race, I expect that, despite how similar we look and act, that some things are different; maybe one of these things is that they are strong as hell. There was a superhero like that from a deadbeat set of comics that tried to get a revamp in the 90’s, he was an alien who came to Earth and wasn’t particularly remarkable on his planet but because he was on Earth it was like he had superpowers. I wonder if Coran is that strong. That’d be pretty strange as he’s kind of gangly, but I dunno, I shouldn’t be so quick to write it off by how they look when thinking about it from human standards. Who knows, maybe the smaller visible muscles an Altean has the stronger they are? Or something? Well, Allura doesn’t  _ **_not_ ** _ have muscles, she’s got that curve in her bicep which is like, peak arm physique, and she’s strong as  _ **_fuck._ ** _ I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t be overthinking this as much as I am. As per usual.  _

I let out a sigh and shift, sitting more upright on my pillows to look down the neck at the frets as I play the strings. Back home, I don’t really play my guitar at all save for when I’m adding a layer on a remake I’m doing on my laptop; some songs, especially from the twenty first century which are my favorites, just can’t have a replicated sound on the keyboard and need the twang that comes with the strings. I used to be a lot better before I got the keyboard; I played it nonstop since I begged my parents to get me a guitar when I was twelve and that summer I took it with me to camp so I could learn how to play it from the masters, who I saw as my camp counselors, but specifically I had Chase James Scott Brian in mind, the legendary man with the four first names. The summer prior I hear him play for the first time. I don’t know what it was about listening to Chase James Scott Brian sing this song, watching the emotion he projected, the emotion it _produced_ in me, but it made me realize how powerful music was, and the power it could give to oneself and most importantly to others. It made sense to me that in ancient Greek myths sirens would use song to draw sailors to their death, how Orpheus could bend anyone to his whim by how well and beautifully he played. That song was the first one I tried to learn on my own because of how powerful it was for me at that time. The first song I _ever_ learned was _Stairway to Heaven_ by Led Zeppelin because Chase James Scott Brian taught me how to play it that summer I brought my new guitar, but that song that he played that day reminds me of how powerful music can be. The words don’t change, the notes don’t change, but _how_ those notes are played, _how_ those lyrics are sung… they’re like the incantation of a spell, they can lead you to making the magic but you have to have the magic within you to project _into_ it, and what you bring to the table changes that spell’s outcome. And _that’s_ when the magic happens.

Just thinking about the song brings a smile to my lips. I play it quietly to myself before sitting up to play more seriously, planting my feet on the ground as I lean over the wood and allow my fingers to glide with the song. I allow myself to sing and let the words carry, I don’t even bother to keep it quiet, because  _ at least there’s some perks of being almost alone in the Castle. _

_ “When, when we came home, _ _   
_ _ Worn to the bones, _ _   
_ _ I told myself, ‘this could ge rough’, _ _   
_ _ And when, when I was off, which happened a lot, _ _   
_ __ You came to me and said ‘that’s enough’,

_ Oh, I know that this love is pain, _ _   
_ _ But we can’t cut it out of these veins, no. _

_ So I’ll get the lights and you’ll lock the doors, _ _   
_ _ We ain’t leaving this room ‘til we both feel more. _ _   
_ _ Don’t walk away, don’t roll your eyes, _ _   
_ __ They say love is pain, then darling, let’s hurt tonight.”

My favorite part about the song is the dichotomy of the language to the sound. They seem to juxtapose one another, but when digging deeper into it they actually mirror each other; the sound is chipper and almost happy due to the major chords and loud crescendos, but the words are not, they’re rather tentative and anxious worried. But, together, the pairing makes a new meaning to the song, the cautious lyrics combine with the boisterous sound and together it creates a feeling of conquering a fear. But today, for some reason as I sing the words and strum the chords it fills me with a hollow feeling, like I’m undeserving of claiming the feeling the song can evoke. It sounds sadder than I want it to, it weighs more with the words than I remember it’s supposed to. I furrow my eyebrows and continue to play, tapping my foot to keep time.

_ “When you came home,  _ _   
_ _ Worn to the bones, _ _   
_ _ I told myself, ‘this could get rough’, _ _   
_ _ Oh, I know you feel insane. _ _   
_ __ Tell me something that I can explain.

_ Oh, I’ll get the lights and you’ll lock the doors, _ _   
_ _ Tell me all of the things that you couldn’t before. _ _   
_ _ Don’t walk away, don’t roll your eyes,  _ _   
_ _ They say love is pain, well darling, let’s hurt tonight. _ _   
_ __ If this love is pain, then darling let’s hurt more tonight.”

I focus more on the notes to try and project that sound more, but that powerful feeling that comes with the crescendo with this part of the song is just  _ lacking  _ for some reason. I stop and start it over again to try and find it but it eludes my fingertips, for some goddamn reason it’s just not coming to me naturally, which is weird to say the least, I can’t seem to grasp that victorious climax of the song. This causes me to stop and stare at the frets before checking the tuning on the strings. They’re not off, but somehow when I keep trying to play again it still just  _ feels  _ off. 

_ This happens sometimes when how I’m feeling doesn’t correspond to what I’m playing but I don’t see why I can’t tap into the joyous part of the song. I don’t feel sad, I feel good, I feel happy, sore as hell but happy all the same. Or… I don’t know, am I? _

I pause and stare at the strings, frowning to myself as the hollow, aching feeling in my chest suddenly intensifies and grows stronger, like I knocked over a pitcher of cold water in my chest. Giving up, I set the instrument aside and recline back on my bed instead, frowning as I stare at the wall.  _ Maybe I’m not. But is it wise for me to really dig into why that’s the case right now? Should I really go down that rabbit hole of, “So Will, what’s making you unhappy now?” Like damn, where do I start? Is it because the Castle is terrifying as fuck when it’s damn near empty? Is it because of how terrifying it is that I miss the others’ presence here and that’s why the Castle is so scary? Is it because I saw Sendak earlier and that shook me to the t? Is it because Hunk and Keith didn’t check in until late and I didn’t get the chance to see them, ask how they are, see if they’re alright? Is it because I’m still beating myself to death over the shit job I did being a good friend, or frankly even a good  _ **_person_ ** _ to Keith after what happened at the Blade of Marmora’s base? Oh, yeah, that’s it, that’s probably it.  _

I roll over onto my side as I clutch at my chest, a pain settling under my sternum and sitting there, festering, aching. I grab one of my pillows where they got pushed aside and hug it tightly to my chest, burying my face into it with a pained whimper.  _ As soon as I see him on Olkarion I’m going to apologize. Hug him and apologize. No, the hugging part is the selfish part, Keith doesn’t like physical affection much, so I’ll just apologize. A lot. So, so much. Oh. And I should probably get my lion’s stone back. Probably before I apologize. Just logistically makes more sense.  _

_ God fucking damnit, now I’m overthinking how the fuck I- God, can’t I just go to sleep? Can’t a bitch just get some fucking sleep around here?  _

I bury my face into the pillows with an annoyed noise and internally beg for sleep to come. 

… 

_ I just feel pain.  _

_ There’s nothing but this agonizing, scorching burn, the convulsion and the barely controlled screaming ripping through my lungs so violently it hurts my throat, I see nothing but black spots and white flashes and crackles of violet lightning until suddenly it stops. My body hits the floor and when I open my eyes I see a sea of red that begins to sharpen, bit by bit, until I can clearly see the sigil of the Galra empire like a blood rune emblazoned on the wall of the Castle’s bridge.  _

_ I hear screaming, vague, indistinct, I’m still coming to but it seems to crash against my skull and make everything suddenly sharper like the edge of a razor blade. I blink, reaching up and rubbing my eyes as I sit up, I feel a wet, throbbing pain in my side but when my vision focuses it becomes entirely secondary. The others are here, scattered across the room, each and every one of them have blood smeared across the whites of their armor, each are visibly battered and bruised. Shiro is on his side with his back to me but he’s completely still, his prosthetic hand clenched into a perpetual fist; Allura is next to Hunk who leans against the stairs, she lies unmoving and he has his hands pressed to the wound in his side as he rasps, barely breathing, but as I watch him I see his eyes roll back and his chest stop rising until he too is still. Lance has his back to me in the center where he’s cradling Pidge; her glasses lay broken next to her body where she lies on the floor, her head lolled to the side with her eyes listlessly staring at the ceiling. A horrible scream of pain echoes in the room and I try to move my hands to cover my ears but they won’t move, they’re chained to the floor by nothing. I hiss and tug and tug on my hands to get them free from the invisible chains that hold them when I see movement, when I look up a black shadow approaches me. I try to see but everything is blurred, all I can see is a golden eye and a red light staring at me as a body is suddenly dropped directly in front of me where I am on my knees. I blink and look down and choke on a sob as Keith’s eyes stare at me but not at me, their light is long gone and all I can see is the blood along the side of his armor, the trickle from his mouth. I try to reach out to him but I can’t move, I sit and I stare and I cry but I can do nothing. I can only watch.  _

_ “You have no claws little lion.” Sendak’s voice, familiar and sickening seems to fill the space like hot smoke and curls around me, enveloping me until all I can see his Keith’s dead eyes staring into heaven before it rushes down my throat, burning my lungs like lava dripping into my chest and I stop being able to breathe, I can’t breathe, Keith, I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop him, I can’t breathe, Keith- _

I bolt upright with a terrified garble ripping through my throat followed by choking coughs and pained gasps, my hands immediately move to my neck as I struggle for air but it doesn’t come, I wheeze and whimper and sob. Unable to breathe I desperately chant in my head,  _ one, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again. One, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again. One, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again. _

I wipe my eyes as hiccuping sobs rack my being and too exhausted to do much else I collapse back down on the sheets, curling around my pillow and cry into it. 

I lie like that for a long time, long enough that my eyes hurt and my chest aches like I got punched. I take deep, shaking breaths, whispering now that I can breathe,  _ “One, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again.”  _ I close my eyes, count, and let it out again as my eyes open, and when they do they lock on the shadowy bookshelf before me. Thoughtlessly I reach out and grab it, pulling the pen out of the spiral and sitting up. I can just see where the lines in the paper are so I write small and as linear as I can. 

_ ‘Just had a really bad nightmare. I need to write it out before I forget it so I don’t focus on how it’s making me feel and focus on the details instead, distraction distraction. I couldn’t even get out my chant verbally until just now, until I was already calming down. It was about Sendak, except this time everyone was on the bridge, even Allura. I couldn’t move for some reason, I just looked on to see the others… They were all dead, except for Lance… Lance was holding Pidge in his arms. Then Sendak dropped Keith’s body in front of me and told me that I have no claws, calling me a little lion. He called me that when he had Shiro and I in captivity. Why does this haunt me so much?’  _

My hand, once badly shaking, seems to settle as I get the words out, and despite it all the terror that crept into my mind, the writing seems to help it ease.  _ ‘Writing this out is helping. I need to go back to sleep, it must be the middle of the night and Allura and I are arriving to the Balmera tomorrow. I’ll just have to come up with something good to think about so I don’t cry myself to sleep. Wow. How pathetic is that, huh?’  _ I shut my notebook and haphazardly toss it back onto the bookshelf, I can hear it land and knock one of the books over but they don’t fall off the bookshelf so I count it as a win.

I roll onto my side and hang on tightly to my pillow, closing my eyes again rather forcefully and willing myself to sleep.  _ I just have to think about something else. Something good, something that makes me happy. What makes me happy? I can’t think about music right now, I’ll get a song stuck in my head and then it’ll never end, I’ll just get annoyed…  _

Of course, my stupid, gay thoughts go straight to Keith. I bury my face in my pillow, desperate for anything I just throw myself into it without second thought; Icimagine his scent, salt and leather… and cinnamon. Bare traces and tastes of cinnamon.  _ I wonder if he’d like cuddling. Like, as a concept. He isn’t a touchy feely person, but maybe deep down he’s a secret koala, maybe he’d like those desperate, both arms wrapped around the other cuddles with foreheads touching or faces buried in necks or chests… Maybe he just likes to lie together and enjoy the close proximity. Maybe he’d like it if I played with his hair while trying to go to sleep. It’d be silky and nice and soft, which is strange since he’s not, he’s rough edges and sandpaper but his hair is soft. His lips are soft.  _

_ Damnit. I’m gay.  _

… 

When I open my eyes I take a deep breath, staring at the wall. My notebook is lying half on top of the collection of Shakespeare plays I accidentally hauled with me to space, my guitar lies on the ground next to my bed.  _ Damn, it’s kind of a mess in here. What the hell did I…? Ah. Right. Last night. Yikes. Let’s not think about that.  _ Too drowsy to think I sit up and put my books back to rights and then replace my guitar in the corner before I go about getting ready for the day, this time putting on my Voltron suit because we’re arriving to the Balmera today. _ Good, I want to get to Olkarion quick so I don’t have to spend another night alone in the Castle.  _

_ I wonder if Allura feels the same.  _

I make my way to the kitchen and blindly shovel some goo in my mouth, by the time I’ve finished up Allura strides into the room. She’s similarly clad in armor like I am and she moves around me to get into some of the stores of food hidden away in one of the cupboards. “Morning.” I greet her with a slight yawn, rubbing my eyes as I spoon some more goo into my mouth. 

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” Allura asks politely, moving to sit beside me as she chews on something in her hand, it looks like a black, shiny orb but it appears soft like cheese based on the bite marks she leaves. 

“Uh, yeah.” I mutter, straightening as I turn to face her, “How soon are we arriving to the Balmera?” 

“Relatively soon.” Allura answers. She taps her wrist and looks down at the Altean characters that holographically illuminate before she meets my gaze, “A few hours, just before mid quintant.” 

I let out a soft breath, my shoulders hanging as the impatience humming in my veins skyrockets but the urgency plummets. “Damn, alright.” I mutter, standing up after a moment and putting my bowl away as I turn to her, “What’re we gonna do to pass the time?”

Allura takes another bite out of the squishy whatever it is in her hand before she beams, taking my wrist and guiding me from the room, “I was hoping you would ask!”

“... Oh?” I ask with a confused tone, stumbling after her quickly. 

She heads towards the bridge, biting off another chunk of her food before she turns to me with a broad smile, “Yes! Hunk told me of a few Earth “roadtrip” games and the mice and I have been giving them a go. Now, I think with our minds combined it will allow for a new set of challenges!”

“I… What?” I blink stupidly at her as we break into the bridge. Through the far glass the room is illuminated in the light of the thousands of stars clustered before us, and in the very center of the room, in Allura’s circle, are the Altean mice. They make vague motions I can’t quite distinguish and soft, chattering noises as we approach, Allura immediately sits on her ankles before them with her hands excitedly clasped in her lap as she looks over at me, “Yes, Will shall be joining us! Don’t worry, I’ll explain the rules.” The mice turn towards one another like in a pregame huddle as Allura faces me and gestures for me to sit on the floor beside her, so I do. Allura begins to talk quickly with excited lilts in her voice, “So the object of the game is to guess what the mice are trying to tell us.” 

I smirk roguishly, “Well, you kinda have an unfair advantage then, huh?”

Allura shakes her head, “No, they aren’t allowed to speak. They have to get us to guess a word, an object, a place, a person, using only gestures.”

I blink. “Oh, it’s charades?” 

Allura gives me in a matching look of confusion, “You’ve played this game as well?”

I nod, crossing my legs beneath me, “Yeah, we play it at birthday parties and stuff sometimes. Kinda hard to do on road trips because cars lack space, but…”

Her smile brightens like the dawn, “Perfect! Then you’ll be an asset to winning.” She turns her attention to the mice with a perfectly studious and challenging expression as she states with authority, “We are ready, what is your first challenge?”

I raise an eyebrow at her and then fix my attention to the mice as they turn towards us. One of them holds up two digits of their paw, prompting Allura to say, “Two words.” The mouse nods and then holds up one, “First word…!” Allura continues with excitement rising in her voice. The mouse then turns to its compatriots and together they make a wave with their bodies, wiggling like worms. “Sound!” Allura proclaims. The mice shake their heads, prompting Allura to just start spitballing, “Waves? Currents. Drink? Oh, so I’m close… Splash? Water?” With the final word the mice make vague approving gestures, so Allura proclaims excitedly, “Water! Alright, now second word…” I look on with growing confusion as the mice stack on top of one another, making soft buzzing noises as they paddle their little forearms in the air. 

Allura immediately gasps in excitement, “That’s a bytor!” She starts upright and then claps, “Water bytor!” The mice jump off one another and make vague congratulatory gestures. 

I look at her, then at the mice with a wide eyed expression.  _ When I left Earth in search for answers as to why I was dreaming of the White Lion, never in my wildest reaches of my imagination would I think that I’d be sitting on the floor of a thousand year old alien warship with an alien princess and her telepathically linked mice playing charades while on our way to an alien planet that’s also technically a living animal to get a life force-pumped crystal to power a wormhole generator to throw a powerful dictator as hard as possible across the universe. This may just be the weirdest thing that’s happened since we escaped the space mall on the back of a cow on a hover board, being pursued by a Galra space mall cop.  _

_ Well… nah, let’s not get too hasty.  _

“Okay…” I mutter, pursing my lips as I blink, “I’ll try to keep up.”

Allura doesn’t seem to hear me as the mice have already begun to reassemble, acting out another sequence. Allura immediately gets to work on guessing but I don’t think she notices my lack of participation, as she more than makes up for it with enthusiastic guesses and excited proclamations. I’m okay with it, seeing as almost every word or phrase is something in Altean, but also because it’s so…  _ nice  _ to see Allura so open, carefree, almost childish. It’s a side of her I never really get to see except in rare moments like these, and I don’t want to interrupt it unless it were to be absolutely necessary.  _ She’s still relatively young in Altean years, I think the equivalent in our years is something like our age. That’s… insane. Especially considering her stature, her experiences and the simple weight resting on her shoulders. I wish that this weren’t the case; I feel the same way about Pidge. They shouldn’t have to be acting so grown up with all this saving the world bullshit, not that they aren’t allowed to or incapable, quite the opposite; they do it well. It’s just… I wish they didn’t have to. I wish they got the chance to be kids. Even though Allura’s, like centuries old, but whatever… I kind of see her as a younger sister.  _

At one point Allura slumps a bit, letting out a relieved giggle as she regards the mice fondly, “Wow. Hunk was right; these Earth road trip games do help pass the time.” I can’t help but smile a little with a sarcastic lilt.  _ Good to see that their conversation the day before was enlightening. _

Suddenly above us the hologram of her station bursts to life with a soft pinging noise. Allura’s expression becomes one of perfect seriousness as she moves to stand, speaking aloud to me, “Oh, Coran is hailing us from Olkarion!” She moves to rise and I do the same, she taps a button on the hologram and an image of Coran appears. He looks like he’s standing in an Olkari building, judging by the olive and emerald color scheme of metal behind him, and best of all he looks well rested and gleaming.  _ Maybe he’s finally getting a bit of a rest now that he has the Olkarion engineers to help him out.  _

“Greetings!” Coran says with a wave, raising an eyebrow at Allura beside me, “How are you? Are you almost at the Balmera?”

Allura’s eyebrows furrow as she taps on an button beneath Coran’s image before she answers in a matter of fact tone, “We are scheduled to arrive in just a few doboshes.” 

I blink and start in surprise, “Oh hey, that’s pretty soon!”  _ Holy shit, were we really sitting here playing charades for hours? I didn’t even realize how time slipped by…  _

She glances over at me before she lets out a soft sigh, “I hope that we’ll be able to find a crystal big enough for the teludav.” 

Internally I really  _ really  _ want to make a  _ size doesn’t matter  _ joke but decide that now is probably not the best time, so I keep it to myself.  _ I think I was almost possessed by the spirit of Lance McClain. _

“Have you heard from the other paladins?” Coran asks. His tone is chipper and upbeat, and honestly I’ve never truly appreciated how much I… well, appreciate that happy attitude.  _ I guess that’s because now I don’t get to hear it everyday.  _

“We spoke with Lance, Shiro, and Pidge, they’ve located Slav.” Allura speaks briskly, glancing over at me. 

“What about Hunk? And Keith?” Coran tags on at the end. Allura nods, her gaze is far away and her shoulders are slightly slumped, “Yesterday evening. They should all be heading back to Olkarion now, the Blue Lion by evening.”

Coran beams, twirling his mustache between his thumb and forefinger, “I have no doubt that my scientifically accurate instructional video was of great help!”

Allura’s voice is distracted as she mutters, “I’m… sure it was.” She straightens a little, her hands holding her elbows, “If they collect enough scaultrite for the lenses, will your teludav structure be complete?”

“It’s about halfway done” Coran answers with a brisk nod, his gaze shifting to something beyond the hologram as he continues, “The Olkari and I have been working on it day and night. Now it is just a matter of constructing the actual teludav, and the gravity generator this Slav has the blueprints for.”

Allura lets out a sigh, her eyes listing to the floor, “I hope it will be ready in time.”

Coran’s attention shifts back to us as his eyebrows furrow, “What’s the matter, Princess? You sound worried.”

Allura’s eyes close briefly and when she opens them again her gaze locks onto mine. Something about the look makes my chest ache, compelled I give her a gentle expression and rest a hand on her shoulder as she speaks, “I was just… thinking about my father. He gave his life to try and keep Voltron out of Zarkon’s hands and now that we have a chance to defeat him, I…” Allura pauses, her eyes like glimmering sapphires in the overhead light, “I don’t want to fail.”

“And we won’t.” I state with confidence, gripping her shoulder tightly. 

She looks to me with a softened gaze but a forlorn expression right as Coran speaks, “You know, Princess, your father would be proud of you.” Allura shifts and looks at him with wide eyes as he continues in a glowing tone that’s so different, so soft and gentle in comparison to the pep and dazzle his voice usually has that it immediately draws my absolute attention to his soft grayed eyes where they lie squarely on Allura, “It wasn’t that long ago we found out that Altea had been destroyed. We could’ve easily given up, but we didn’t.  _ You  _ didn’t. And now look at us.” He glances over at me with a smile that radiates warmth through my chest, “We reformed Voltron, we freed the Olkari and the Balmerans, and now they work alongside us. And before long there will be more.”

“Such is the rise of the greatest of legends.” I murmur thoughtfully. Both Allura and Coran look to me with confused expressions so I elaborate with a gentle tone, “My grandpapa always told me that the lower you begin, the higher you can go. Look at where you started and where we are now, and that’s how we know that we are truly doing something that’s important, something that  _ matters _ … and that we’re succeeding with it.” 

Idly I wonder what my grandpapa would be think, knowing I’m using his words in such a context. He said it to me when I was younger, after I’d just come out, to inspire me to keep doing what I loved despite the challenges I’d face along the way, but now…  _ I don’t think he’d ever imagined I would be using his guiding words in a kind of motivational speech for two aliens in the midst of an intergalactic war. _

“You’re right.” Allura murmurs with a warm light peeking through her visage like moonlight parting clouds, her gaze locked onto Coran’s with stark confidence, “We will be able to defeat Zarkon… together.”

Coran smiles warmly at Allura for a long moment before he salutes crisply, “Crack a squizzle on the Balmera, Princess!”  _ Crack a what now? _

“Thank you, Coran.” Allura nods with a sudden, burning light in her eyes and with a wave of her hand the transmission cuts out, revealing in full the glass beyond the hologram. I start when I see the outline of the Balmera coming into view, and gaining fast. 

“There it is!” I proclaim with excitement, beaming over at Allura, “Well, damn, we’re here. That was a fun road trip, now wasn’t it? Tons of bonding!”

Allura giggles, her smile is so bright that it makes my chest warm significantly. I step back as her pillars rise to her hands and she takes manual control of the Castle, I move to the back to sit in my seat and bring up my hologram. I help with the balance of the thrusters as we approach the Balmera, excitement courses through my veins as we breach the atmosphere. The ground below, once dull and brown now glitters with splashes of blue across its surface like stars in the sky, I watch as the ground below grows closer and closer, I can even see collected shapes of Balmerans scattered across the earth… or, rather, ground.  _ They are finally able to come to the surface with the Galra gone. _ This truly brings a brilliant smile to my face. I’m excited to finally have arrived, and I’m excited to see the Balmerans and how the Balmera’s health has improved since we left; based on the number of crystals I can see that now come into view, I can safely say that it must be far better.  _ Hopefully enough that the Balmera has a crystal big enough for the teludav.  _

With a chorusing  _ throom  _ we land upon the Balmera’s surface gently, the Castle coming to as standstill. Beyond I can see the caverns of the Balmera, and the beginnings of tiny heads poking out in curiosity at our arrival.

“Let’s go.” Allura turns from the center, the pillars receding into the floor as she walks with a confident stride to the doorway. I follow after her quickly, excited to get off the Castle, even if its only for a little while to get the crystal.  _ But off the Castle nonetheless! _

We make it to the hanger and I disengage to grab my helmet from my armory before returning to Allura to take the surface projector down to the Balmera’s surface, and when the door opens I let out a breath as a smile stretches across my features. The ground is sandy and cracked like the deserts of Texas save the ground is speckled with thousands of blue crystals of various sizes, some small enough to hold in my hand while others as large as houses. They shine like bits of ocean glass across the stretches of land before us, spikes of earth jut from the surface like fallen knives stuck in the sand. As Allura and I walk out I see a group of Balmerans approaching, probably having been waiting for us. Immediately I spot Shay, I recognize her from the rocky jutting of ears from the top / side of her head, like a cat’s, and the dull, gold hoops that hang to her rugged jawline, and beside her I believe it must be her family; I recognize her brother, Rax, because of his resting bitch face and the spiky bites around his jawline that reach up to his stiff ears. He’s carrying a smaller figure that I vaguely recognize him carrying in the past, and by smaller I mean she’s the size of Shiro and has arms like a wrestler rather than an ogre like the others do.  _ Damn, I forgot how big the Balmerans are. Put fifty of them together and they could probably benchpress my lion. _

Rax sets down the smaller Balmeran who collects herself, she stoops with age and speaks with a voice much like Grandmother Willow as she fixes her gaze on us, “The Balmera welcomes your return, Princess Allura.” She looks to me and I see she has a wizened visage that folds in wrinkles not unlike she is made of clay, her two ears hang on the side of her head like a lamb’s and each have two yellow hoops hanging past her jaw. She has a lilac shawl draped over her shoulders unlike the others, who have tunics of various earth tones and greens. “And you, sky lion warrior.” 

I try not to get all tingly at the title.  _ Sky lion warrior. That’s got a real nice ring to it, I gotta say. Not that the White Paladin doesn’t, but… damn, that’s pretty cool. Warrior. _

Shay claps her hands excitedly before her, taking an excited step forward with a brilliant gleam in her golden eyes, “Has Hunk accompanied you?” Internally I balk.  _ I also forgot how high pitched and gentle Shay’s voice is, like a fairy’s despite how fucking large she is, at least a full head and shoulders above me. How juxtaposing. _

Allura shakes her head, her hands clasped in her lap with an apologetic expression, “I’m sorry Shay but we’ve come alone.”

I nod with a slight gesture over my shoulder, giving Shay a fond, sheepish smile, “I’ll be sure to tell him you said hi, though.” 

Shay’s ears slightly fall but at my words she seems to perk a little, much to my relief as seeing her crestfallen expression literally felt like a stab in my heart.  _ She’s honestly so precious, like a puppy. A massive, stony puppy. _ As we are speaking to one another more Balmerans approach from the caves and from the surrounding lands, gathering with expressions of excitement to the point there is a general hum of energy around the Castle as they gather, I estimate there to be at least a hundred Balmerans.  _ Wow, they really came out.  _ I look beyond and see more coming from the caverns and the craggy hills surrounding the Castle.

Allura continues with her gaze on the Balmerans, “Yes, the others are on missions of their own collecting important elements that we need to defeat Zarkon.”

Shay and her family immediately straighten, the closest Balmerans in our vicinity make soft noises and I can hear the words  _ Zarkon  _ and  _ defeat  _ radiate outwards like Allura’s words sent a pulse through the air as the elder Barmeran echoes, “Defeat Zarkon?” Her gaze sets with a fierce light in her eyes that reminds me of my mom’s, “The Balmera and its people can never thank you enough for all that you’ve done. How can we help?”

Allura’s gaze sets with a polite lilt in her tone, much like that of a politician’s, “If the Balmera will give it, I need a crystal.”

Shay’s face alights in curiosity, “Battleship class?”

Allura shakes her head, “Bigger.”

I nod in agreement, holding my arms out as wide as possible, “ _ Way  _ bigger.” 

The elder Balmeran looks behind her to her family, and after a moment Shay pipes up with her hands held in front of her, like she’s holding a caught firefly, “When the Galra were here, there was a large cavern that was closed off, almost like the Balmera was protecting itself… Now that the Balmera is free and fully healed, these crystal caverns are opened once more. It is here that we will find the crystal you seek.”

“Excellent.” Allura straightens, squaring her shoulders as she regards Shay with a gentle expression, “Please, lead the way.” 

Shay nods with understanding and turns, heading down towards the nearest cavern into the underbelly of the Balmera. Rax lifts who I assume is his mother or grandmother in his arms once more, I see now it is because her legs are thin and frail beneath the folds of her leggings; I wonder at how they’re even able to hold her frame upright in standing position. The two other Balmerans who accompany them fall in step with Allura and Shay as they stride with a quick pace and quickly I follow, looking around as the larger and larger collection of Balmerans part before us like the Red Sea. That’s when I see it, just over the rise of a jagged stalagmite; a massive, lavender and periwinkle crystal, about three fourths the size of the Castle, underneath its gleaming surface I can see the long limbed outline of the ro-beast within, the one with the thousand eyes. Recalling the battle I shiver before I drop my head and focus on keeping up with Shay and Allura’s quick strides, delving beneath the Balmera’s surface. 

It takes a long time, walking down into the tunnels below by the steep pathways, and then even longer to delve into the Balmera’s caverns once we’re down there. It’s awe inspiring now to see the caves, once they looked like the Luray Caverns but now they go far beyond, lighting the way are soft blue crystals embedded in the walls and the floors, like we are walking among the stars. Simply put, it’s absolutely  _ breathtaking.  _

“Wow.” I whisper to myself, turning in circles as we descend deeper into the Balmera, leaving the lights of the outside behind us as we instead are illuminated solely by the aquamarine light of the crystals. “This is…  _ gorgeous. _ I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life.” 

“It is all thanks to you.” I look up when Rax speaks to me, and to my surprise his gaze is soft and warm. I’m surprised because I remember how hard his expression was when I first met him, but now I realize that maybe that was just circumstance. Maybe this softened Rax I see before me is the authentic one, one that isn’t terrified and angry at the situation he finds himself in. 

“We couldn’t have done it without your help, though.” I answer, flashing him a genuine smile, “You and your family got us out of the core when the Galra locked us in, after all.”

Rax nods, hanging his head for a moment as we descend deeper, the gold light of the Balmerans eyes trailing down after us hover like fairy lights as he speaks, “I was wrong about you and your sky beasts. It was the least I could do to atone.” 

“Consider yourself atoned, then.” I turn to watch my footing as I almost eat it tripping over a crystal in the ground.  _ Jesus, that would be embarrassing. _ Ahead I see a curve in the tunnel, a filter of pulsing blue light illuminating the smoothed sides like we’re about to walk into an aquarium. As we turn the corner I immediately stare in awe at the sight. 

The cavern is circular, the deep, dark stone is freckled in crystals like stars in the night sky, but what dominates my attention is the absolute  _ unit  _ of a crystal resting in the center. It’s at least as big as my lion and glows with a steady pulse brilliant sapphire light, it’s like staring into the raw core of the ocean.

_ “Holy shit.”  _ I whisper. 

Allura stands in front of me with Shay at her side, her eyes are equally wide and her voice drips in awe, “Incredible…”

Soon the wonder wears off, and pragmatism takes its place. “So…” I mutter, looking back at the tunnel behind us before looking up at the massive crystal, “How the hell are we gonna get this thing out of here? It’s  _ huge _ !”

“We must see if the Balmera is willing to give it to us, first.” Allura responds in a low voice. She hesitates for a moment before she walks forward with reverence in her step, like she’s about to walk up to the pearly gates themselves. The collection of Balmerans who followed us down from the surface gather around the crystal and begin to kneel, resting their palms against the clay-like ground, I count at least fifty if not more. Beneath their hands emanates a soft blue light, a blue that matches the pulsing beauty before me, and for a brief moment I feel like an intruder sitting in on an important ceremony that I have no business being in, so I stand back by the entry way of the tunnel. Shay, Rax, and her grandmother kneel just in front of me as Allura reaches the base of the crystal. I watch as she lays her palms flat on the surface, a few moments later a powerful blue light, brighter even than that of the crystal she touches, radiates from her hands and from all around her, generating ethereal mist. I watch as the entire room seems to pulse like the crystal is the Balmera’s heart, the lights brighten and darken at regular intervals and my heart flutters in my chest at the sheer power I feel in the room, it’s indescribable. 

The ground tremors slightly, and slowly the clay around the crystal begins to fall away and the crystal begins to rise like a push-pop, Allura’s hands release the crystal’s surface but stay raised in the air, the blue light pulsing from her arms resonates like she’s a conductor to a powerful choir in a grand cathedral. The ground shakes again, this time more violently and rock from the ceiling pebbles down and dust falls, coating the area with a sandy sheen, I hold an arm over my head to protect myself. Shay looks up from where she had her gaze focused on the ground and she looks over at her grandmother beside her, I can hear her speaking just barely above a whisper, “Of what was that rumble?” Her grandmother doesn’t move, so Shay continues with a worried tremor in her soft voice, drawing her own conclusions, “Perhaps because a crystal this big has never been asked for.” 

The elder Balmeran slowly raises her head, her voice is steady with an edge of mild concern, “... No. This is something different.”

“Shall we stop the ceremony?” Shay asks, the gold light in her eyes casts a sunlight glow on her cheeks that contrast with the azure light in the room like the sun and the moon. 

The other turns her attention back to Allura where she stands at the base of the crystal, murmuring, “Let her finish.”

Something worms into my stomach, spreading like the roots of a tree around my ribs and upwards, pulsing around my heart and apprehension briefly rests on my tongue as

the crystal continues to rise, the bright blue lights of the room grow steadily brighter until the cavern is illuminated like the moon itself rests within. After a long moment the clay falls completely away and the massive crystal stands still in all of its ethereal glory. 

Allura lets out a soft, weary sigh, her hands falling to her sides. I can hear her just barely speak, “Thank you.”

The mass of Balmerans in the room slowly rise to their feet, a steady, excited clamor rises as they immediately move forward, their hands moving to the underside of the crystal.  _ Hell, no. There’s no way that they’re able to lift- _ It takes some coordination, their massive hands grab onto what they can and with a coordinated heave that’s so in sync it’s actually intimidating the mass of Balmerans lift the crystal upon their shoulders. _ Okay. Nevermind, they  _ **_can_ ** _ lift it.  _

“I should go get my lion from the Castle,” I call in offering, jutting my thumb towards the tunnel entryway, “Help to get it from the bottom of the tunnel so you guys don’t have to carry it up all those slopes.”

Shay did not join the others in lifting the crystal, instead she holds her grandmother upon her back like a backpack, and as I speak she turns to me and nods enthusiastically, “Yes, that is most wise. Come, I will guide you back up the tunnels.” I hurry to follow Shay as she delves back hence we came, glancing back only briefly to see Allura guiding the steady movement of the Balmerans movement towards the tunnel entrance.  _ I should hurry so they don’t have to wait for me.  _ I quickly turn and rush after Shay. 

She gets me back to the surface in ample time, once we arrive to the surface projector Shay sets her grandmother down and then turns back to me, “I shall go and assist the others. I will see you shortly.” She smiles at me with childish delight and offers a broad wave before she rushes back down to the tunnel to descend all over again. I look to the elder Balmeran and give her a polite nod as she stands with her hands clasped, she nods back with a strange glow in her dandelion colored eyes. I enter the surface projector, taking it back up to the Castle. 

I rush into my hanger quickly, as I approach my lion her barrier falls and her eyes light up in a bright gold, she opens her jaws enthusiastically like she was waiting for me. I ascend up the steps and slide into my seat, the controls spring up into my palms and I let out a soft sigh.  _ Wow. It’s been several days since I’ve flown… at least four. I didn’t realize until just now.  _

“Long time no see.” I murmur affectionately, leaning forward and patting the control panel yet for some reason when I do it feels strangely cold, almost alien. I blink, looking down at the controls and see that nothing visibly is amiss, and that’s when it hits me.  _ Oh. I’m not wearing my stone. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t fly with it, I think it was back on Arus. Weird, I guess that changes things.  _

_ Well that’s fine, like I’ll be needing it anyway.  _ I remotely open my hanger door and guide my lion out, engaging the thrusters to head back to the cavern. Now that I’m high in the sky I can see farther along the curve of the Balmera’s surface, and about half a mile away I see the massive rise of the crystal covered ro-beast. However, before the crystal’s color was a soft lavender, but as I look at it now it looks much darker, like a massive amethyst.  _ That’s… weird. That’s weird, right?  _

_ I dunno, maybe not. Maybe it was just the lighting when I was looking at it before.  _ I turn my attention back to the present and slowly drop my lion down the shaft of the Balmera where we went to get to the crystal caverns. 

Beneath my lion’s paws I can see the emerging crystal-bearing Balmerans led by Allura, having just arrived to the area. They move out of the way as I stabilize the thrusters and clasp my controls tightly, with a steady breath I reach down with my lion’s claws and dig them into the crystal. I feel the weight immediately, the metal in my lion’s arms groan but they hold, I accommodate for the added weight with more power into the blast of the thrusters. I press upwards on the controls and slowly I begin to ascend into the air, rising slowly but steadily, and once I’m about to reach the surface I hear Allura over the com, “I’ve opened the main chamber of the foyeur, it should be just large enough to house the crystal until we get it to Olkarion. I’m sending the Balmerans up as well so they can help secure the crystal in place once it’s there.”

“Alright, I’m on it.” I state, the light bounces off the massive crystal in my lion’s claws like I’m bearing the essence of the sky up to it, it glows and refracts light across the Balmera’s surface like a disco ball. I see the wide open doors at the front of the Castle, the very doors I and the others walked through on our first day after the Blue Lion hand delivered us to it.  _ Wow, how time sure flies… Now look at us.  _

I approach it slowly, but find that my lion bearing the crystal don’t fit through the entryway, the crystal itself does perfectly, but not my lion. So instead I set it down just in front of it and then touch my helmet as I engage the com, “I can’t get the crystal actually inside, it’s too big for me and my lion to go through with it, so I put it just outside the Castle gates. Can the Balmerans get it inside?” 

Allura verbally nods, “Yes, they should be there within a dobosh. I’m on my way up, I’ll see you back on the surface.” 

“Aye aye, Princess.” I murmur in jest as I guide my lion back to her hanger, now that we are free of the crystal suddenly I feel surprisingly fast and agile.  _ Wow, I wonder why. I’m so fucking smart.  _ I guide my lion back into her hanger and once she lands she rumbles almost in disappointment, resting her head between her paws and I can almost feel her pouting. “Aww, come on, don’t be like that!” I stand up and pet her controls with a slight smirk, “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of Galra to fight soon enough, just you wait.” I don’t feel her presence anymore, so I walk out through her teeth and move back into the hanger proper to take the surface projector back down to the Balmera. 

When the doors open I see Allura standing several yards away with Shay’s family, all present except for Shay. They are speaking to Allura in joyful tones and I can see Rax is holding something at hand that looks like a granite bowl that’s used to make guacamole. I approach and look over my shoulder towards the Castle entrance and see that the crystal is gone, probably already being secured within.  _ Damn, those Balmerans are strong as all get out. I bet Shay could snap my spine with her hand if she wanted to without even blinking an eye.  _

Once I’m standing beside Allura I see Shay running up to us from the Castle entrance; the Balmerans, now at least several hundred, collect around us with hands clasped over their hearts and with general expressions that leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, they’re probably excited about our presence hence why they turned out to such an amount. When Shay pulls up to our small huddle she beams, her hands planted on her hips in pride, “The crystal has been loaded onto your Castle, Princess!” Allura smiles in thanks as Shay steps forward and wraps her arms around her, dwarfing Allura in comparison with the hug before she turns towards me, holding her arms out with a sheepish look as if asking for permission. Grinning I respond in kind and desperately plea  _ please don’t squeeze, please don’t break my bones _ but her hug is surprisingly gentle, like being embraced by a cloud. 

The elder Balmeran steps forward, her voice tremors with age as she too hugs Allura, “We wish you could stay longer.” She turns towards Rax who obediently hands her the bowl he bears, and the Balmeran turns to Allura and holds it out to her with a familial smile, “I made you stickercup stew for the sky road.” I watch as thick green worms writhe upon its surface and immediately my stomach churns at the sight,  _ oh man.  _

Allura’s reaction is muted but based on the slight widen of her gaze she feels the same as I do. “Oh, thank you!” Her tone doesn’t sound forced, fortunately, as she reaches out and holds the bowl from beneath it so her hands don’t touch the moving  _ things  _ within, “I’m sure that we shall enjoy this immensely.” 

She looks over at me with a  _ tell them  _ look, so I immediately respond with an enthusiastic nod, “Yes! For sure! I can’t wait to try it!”  _ Maybe Hunk will eat it. I’m sure he’d love a gift of food from the Balmerans… If nothing else it’d be a funny joke. I wonder if it keeps. _

Allura’s expression is proud, her chin is held high as she raises her voice to address the greater collection of Balmerans now swept before us, “To all you Balmerans, thank you once again!”

Suddenly, before anyone can move or even breathe the ground pitches, shaking so violently that I nearly fall over from the shock. Allura stumbles and drops the bowl, it crashes to the ground and the broken pottery crunches as we brace ourselves. 

Allura looks over at me with wide, shocked eyes, “What was that?” 

I grab her forearms to keep us both steady as the ground continues to tremble violently, it’s like we’re standing atop a motor engine as its firing up as I shout, “I’ve no clue! An earthquake?”

That’s when we hear the crackling, like ice breaking off from a glacier. Allura looks with wide eyes over my shoulder and I turn to follow her gaze, the mass of Balmerans around us also turn, and that’s when I see the massive crystal containing the ro-beast jutting into the sky. I look on with dawning horror as chunks of crystals, now a bright and violent purple, crack and fall to the ground, a pulsing light emanating from within so brightly that I can see the outline of the ro-beast perfectly.

Allura’s breath falls short as she whispers,  _ “... Oh no.”  _ She bursts into action without a pause, she shouts so loud that every Balmeran can clearly hear her,  _ “Take cover in the Balmera!!”  _

The response is immediate. The Balmerans flee, breaking into dead sprints to the closest chasm with screams and shouts of fear. Shay looks at Allura with wide eyes as she barks again, “I’ll hold it off with the Castle’s defenses!  _ Go! _ ” Shay doesn’t waste a second, she sweeps up her grandmother in her arms and her family race after her as the ground continues to shake, now so more than ever. Allura looks at me with wide eyes and together we sprint to the surface projector, the doors close agonizingly slowly and the ascent is glacial, adrenaline kicks into my system so immediately that I feel like a ticking timebomb. 

“You’ve gotta get airborne, Allura!” I snap as soon as the doors close, looking to her with determination, “We can’t engage it on the surface, it might hurt the Balmera!” 

“I will.” Allura nods briskly, her gaze is sharp and focused, “Get to your lion!” As soon as the doors to the projector open in the hanger we break into sprints, I head straight for my hanger. “It’s going to take time to get the Castle moving, so ensure the Balmerans get to shelter! If it breaks out, occupy it so I can get airborne!” Allura cries. I shout back, “Heard!” as I burst into my hanger.

Silver’s jaws are already opened, her eyes are bright gold and burning with ferocity. I take the stairs two at a time, flying into my seat as I open my hanger remotely in record time. “Looks like we’re getting action a little sooner than I thought!” I huff, without a moment’s pause I burst out of my hanger at breakneck speed and turn mid-flight and lock my gaze on the cracking violet crystal. As soon as I’m in the air the crystal breaks, pieces are sent flying as the ro-beast’s arms open wide like it’s stretching. Its head is gone, any fleshy parts it once had long since decayed, I can see fragments of time eaten flesh falling from it, sliding to the cracked ground as the crystal pieces fall. The massive laser beam in its chest still has a massive violet crystal sticking out of it but it looks like it’s almost melted into the metal, like a decorative piece that was meant to be a part of its structure all along. Two large, purple fragments of crystal, as big as the ro-beast itself, rise beside it like they have a mind of their own, floating beside the creature like its lackeys. With slow, deliberate steps the ro-beast begins to move, advancing steadily towards the Castle like a massive spectre of death. 

I visually rake the ground quickly but I see not a Balmeran in sight, much to my relief, I fly my lion low to the ground to ensure this is the case as Allura cries, “Particle barrier up!” I look over my shoulder and see the turquoise light pulse, encasing the Castle in a protective bubble, “Engaging defenses now!” 

Bolts of blue light whizz past me as they fire from points all around the Castle’s particle barrier, zoning in on the ro-beast’s leisurely advance but no laser meets its mark; the crystals flanking the creature snap in front of it, moving like sentient creatures and blocking blast after blast and rendering them completely ineffective. Allura snarls, “Those crystals are acting as shields!”

Confident the surface is Balmeran free, I focus my attention back on the slowly advancing ro-beast and shove my controls forward, my lion and I race across the surface before we launch into the air, engaging the thrusters as I hurtle at breakneck speed towards the ro-beast I cry “I’ll draw its attention, focus on getting up!” 

Before I even get close, the crystals part before the beast as it halts. It opens its arms wide as a massive green glow sparks in its chest around the crystal buried in its heart, and with a thundering roar a massive, powerful beam blasts from it onto the Castle, the sheer force of it knocks me and my lion away just as we’re about to get close. I cry out and barrel roll to stabilize myself, circling back around to see the fire erupting around the Castle, the blast like a torrent of chartreuse parting around the Castle like it’s a stone resting in a raging river, the very ground surrounding the Castle vaporizes and stones are sent flying. I steady myself in my lion as the blast ends, immediately I bark over the com, “We need to lure it away from the Balmera!”

“Launching the Castle!” Allura cries in kind, and with much relief I watch as the Castle’s thrusters engage and it ascends into the atmosphere quickly, blasting at an arc away from the beast. 

The ro-beast spreads its arms wide, and with a whirr of invisible energy its feet lift gracefully off the ground and it rises, following after the Castle and gaining speed.  _ Thank God it can still fly. Of all the things I wished weren’t broken on the creature, it’s that. But it doesn’t look like anything else is broken either. _

“Allura, you’ve gotta contact the others!” I cry, pressing my lion forward in pursuit, “I’ll keep it distracted once we’re out of the atmosphere, can you wormhole them to our location? I think we’re gonna need Voltron for this!”

“I’m on it!” Allura barks in return, and as I break the Balmera’s atmosphere I spot the ro-beast, facing Allura and the Castle with its arms outstretched like a preacher about to give the homily. With its back turned to me I engage my lion’s mouth beam, firing directly onto its back with a powerful pulse of starry white. One of the crystals flanking the ro-beast’s sides jerk backwards just in time and absorb the shot, it doesn’t even seem to affect the crystal’s structural integrity and what’s worse It doesn’t turn back to look at me, either even when I soar behind it and fire off two more blasts that get blocked by the crystals. The pulsing green light in its chest returns, and with another thundering pulse it blasts the Castle square in the side. Much to my horror, when it fades I can see the exterior of the particle barrier crackling in an out of focus.  _ Fuck, this beam is far more powerful than it was before, it’s only taken two blasts to almost break the particle barrier! I’ve got to get its attention!  _

Desperate, I engage my lion’s lance at it charge from behind. The crystals immediately jerk in my way but I twist to the side, slicing the far right end of my lion’s lance through it just enough to scratch the back of the ro-beast, I can feel metal collide with metal. I barely rise out of the way before the crystals can pinch me in place, and as I bolt skyward I twist back around and fire with my lion’s tail beam onto where its head once was. The crystals once again block the attack but now I have its attention, it slowly turns away from the Castle and faces me fully. My heart lurches when I see the green fire in its heart burst to life from within the violet crystal, I cry out as I take off to the side, I can feel the pulsing heat and power of the beam within my cabin as it chases me across space. When the light dies I can see the ro-beast following after me with slow deliberance, I take the opportunity to twist about and fire on it once again. It’s futile, the crystals block the blow,  _ but it’s keeping its attention on me and that’s what matters right now.  _

I hear a familiar  _ thoom  _ and when I briefly glance over my shoulder I see two wormholes opening behind the Castle, and much to my absolute joy the Yellow and Blue Lions race through them and towards me, right as the ro-beast’s laser goes off again. I start and dodge just in time, plummeting to get some space between myself and the ro-beast while running in parallel so I can stay ahead of its beam. 

“Whoa! How is that thing still operational?! It doesn’t have a head!” 

Words cannot describe how absolutely overjoyed I am to hear the sound of Lance’s voice, it’s like music to my ears as I twist about when the ro-beast’s fire ceases and fire with my lion’s lasers. I can see the pair of lions racing forward from the Castle, getting closer.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it has something to do with those crystals!” Pidge snaps back in rapid fire. 

“We can’t worry about that now, we have to defend the Castle!” Shiro barks. 

Despite it all I’m so  _ fucking  _ happy to hear their voices, so happy that I nearly get distracted and get pounced upon by the ro-beast as it nears my lion. 

“About time you fuckers showed up!” I shout, twisting and firing my lion’s laser; as the ro-beast’s chest lights up again I bolt to the side as the massive pulsing beam roars through space behind me. “For the love of God, give me a hand! I can’t get a hit on it with those crystals, they’re acting as shields!”

“How did we beat it last time?” Against my better judgement my stupid gay heart jumps at the sound of Keith’s voice, it almost makes me shiver and  _ that  _ is frankly  _ embarrassing.  _ I did not realize how much I would miss it until I’m confronted with it now.

Hunk cries with stress evident in his voice as he replies, “We formed Voltron, then I stuck in my bayard and then we shot it with my blaster right in its arm lasers, but that didn’t stop it so then we had to punch it.”

“And that didn’t stop it either, the Balmera encased it in those crystals that are now  _ pissing me off to no end! _ ” I bark, watching as the Yellow and Blue Lions circle around me, now that they’re close they fire their lasers upon the ro-beast but it seems to be able to block all of our attacks easily with its crystal shields.  _ Fuck those things, honestly. _

“So we’re gonna need Voltron.” Shiro barks, to which Pidge quickly replies, “But we only have three lions!”

“Well maybe we can form the legs and kick it!” Lance cries helpfully right as the ro-beast discharges the laser in its chest straight at the Yellow Lion. Hunk ducks out of the way just in time with a terrified shriek and bolts, the Blue Lion strafes as the Yellow Lion weaves to escape it. 

When the blast ends Shiro lets out a breath, “That new laser is much more powerful. We’re definitely gonna need all the lions!” I twist my lion about and blast my lasers again despite the futility, trying to see if anything can breach those crystal’s defenses as Shiro barks, “Hunk, Will, distract it so we can fly into the Castle! Once we get our lions we’ll cover you so you can fly Keith in for Red.”

“Wait-wait-wait, I have to hold that thing off by myself?!” Hunk cries in fear, I watch as the Blue Lion doubles back and makes a break for the receding form of the fleeing Castle. 

“Oh the horror!” I huff. 

“You have Keith!” Pidge replies helpfully, to which Hunk groans in exasperation, “Yeah, but he’s in here _ with me! _ ”

“There’s no time to argue, we got to do this now!” Shiro commands right as the ro-beast’s chest lights up again. 

I cry out, “Hunk, move!” 

Hunk yelps, “Oh,  _ quiznak! _ ” right as the laser goes off, he bolts in my direction and I have to weave beneath him the other way, I can feel the laser’s heat in the cabin as the ro-beast attempts to cut itself into Hunk and I in one fell swoop. When the laser ends I move in the opposite direction as Hunk in an attempt to flank the beast but as we fire on it the crystals merely split, one crystal blocks Hunk’s fire while the other blocks mine. Even as we race around it they continue to move with ease, Hunk groans in frustration, “Those crystals are blocking all of our attacks!” 

The ro-beast’s fire goes off again and this time as we dodge out of the way the angle of the beam slices across the Castle behind us, and when it does the particle barrier pulses and then falls, leaving it open and bare. “Fuck!” I growl.  _ Poor positioning and planning. _

“The Castle’s doomed unless we keep it focused on us! Come on, we’ve gotta keep it facing away from it!” Hunk cries with fear and newfound determination, racing in the ro-beast’s direction as we open fire on it once again, but Hunk doesn’t stop there, he charges head on and collides into the ro-beast’s crystals like an angry bull. The creature flies backwards as Hunk barrels through it, I fire on it now that the crystals are out of the way and I can see scorch marks on its torso where I manage to get a shot in before the crystals re-engage, blocking them again.  _ Got a little something, at least. _

With a sudden, vengeful twist the ro-beast takes with new energy off after Hunk, I hear Keith cry, “Good, it’s chasing us! Move away from the Castle!” I chase after them, firing on the ro-beast’s back but its crystals fully face me and block the attacks, the monster’s beam goes off and I hear Keith bark, “Bank left! Barrel roll!” I vaguely see the Yellow Lion dodging the beams, I growl and try to press past the ro-beast to fire on its side but the crystals follow me no matter where I go. “Nose dive!” Keith yells.

Hunk snaps impatiently, “Quit back-lion driving!”

I hear Lance’s voice suddenly over the com as I try in vain to breach the crystal’s defenses, “I’ll distract it, go get the Red Lion!” 

Hunk lets out a relieved, high pitched noise, “Oh  _ phew _ , good timing, Lance!” I watch as the Yellow Lion curves, passing me and making a dash for the Castle as the Blue Lion bolts out from the Castle’s direction. Together we fire off our lions’ lasers as the ro-beasts turns in our direction, and when there’s a flare of green I cry, “Move!” Lance and I roll to opposite sides as the beam blasts between us, and suddenly I hear Hunk screaming in agony. It curdles my blood, I stop breathing as I whirl around and that’s when I see the beam blasting the Yellow Lion and when the blast fades he lists through space, the lights in the Yellow Lion’s eyes are gone and he looks, for all intents and purposes, deactivated. 

_ “Guys!”  _ Lance cries out in fear as the Yellow Lion begins to fall, drawn in by the Balmera’s gravity and before long fire bursts along its sides as it breaches the atmosphere. 

“Hunk, do something!” Keith cries, before his voice grows more worried than afraid, “Hunk?!”  

Hunk’s voice is weak as he pants, “I can’t move! I-  _ oh, ow, oh my crow-  _ Nothing’s working!  _ Ah! _ ” 

I snap out of my terror filled delirium and plummet, charging after them as fast as my lion allows, “I’ve got you!” I hear a whine and I look over my shoulder just in time as a green beam fires in my direction, I abruptly lift my lion’s nose straight up to draw the beam away from the Balmera and from Hunk as I see the Blue Lion bolt past me, firing upon the ro-beast. When the blast ends I immediately nose dive again, chasing after the Yellow Lion’s descent at breakneck speed. 

“We’ve gotta protect Hunk!” Pidge cries.

Shiro lets out a breath, “Will, you got-”

“I’ve got him!” I bark sharply as I get in close, as soon as they’re within reach I grab the Yellow Lion’s shoulders in my lion’s paws and engage my thrusters in the opposite direction, halting our plummet into the Balmeran atmosphere. 

“I’m getting real sick of that crystal!” Lance snarls, “Let’s take it out!” 

“On it!” Pidge barks. I pant as my lion groans from the strain, but soon I’m able to lift Hunk back up, with a twist away from the Balmera we head towards the Castle,  _ to get Hunk to safety and to get Keith to his lion.  _ When I look down I see the Yellow Lion’s eyes are still dim, its paws hang lifeless. 

“Hunk, are you okay?” I ask with immediate fear seizing my throat. He whimpers in response, “I did the thing that your lion and Pidge’s lion does… Oh man, this is bad-”

“Hang in there big guy.” Keith murmurs with gentle compassion, I hear a slight shuffle over the com when he speaks. 

I hear a sharp cry, and when I risk a glance over my shoulder I seize when I see the ro-beast giving chase. 

“Shiro, it’s on its way to the Castle!” Pidge cries, and suddenly out of my peripheral I see the Black Lion peel past me and fire on the ro-beast. The creature doesn’t care, its focus is singular; the crystals deflect the Black Lion’s strikes as its chest begins to glow green.  _ Fuck! I can’t maneuver with the Yellow Lion in time to dodge it! Wait a minute, equal reaction…! _

As soon as the idea forms I execute, without a second thought I gasp, “Sorry, Hunk!” I lift him and punch my lion’s feet into the Yellow Lion’s chest, sending it flying out of the way and shoving my lion in the opposite direction as the ro-beast’s laser plows through the space we just were, curling towards Hunk but the blast ends before it strikes him again.  _ Thank God that worked!   _

“Shiro, we’ll keep the crystals busy, you attack from the other side!” I twist in the air and try to right myself to see the Blue and Green Lions firing on the ro-beast from one side, both crystals pressed together to protect the ro-beast as it hovers like a shadow amongst the blackness of space. 

“On the wa-” Shiro’s abruptly cut off as the ro-beast suddenly fires, I dodge as the Black Lion books it over my lion’s head to avoid the blast and it just barely misses me, I even feel the uncomfortable heat pulse in my cabin, I let out an adrenaline coursing breath.  _ Strange that I’m feeling the heat in the cabin rather than on my person, like I usually do.  _ Suddenly the ro-beast twists towards the Castle with a sudden jolt, the rest of us have to race to catch up to it.

“Hey! My lion’s working again! I’m back baby!” Hunk cries, I watch as the Yellow Lion begins to move again where it was once limp in empty space, and that’s when the ro-beast grabs him. It snaps its hands on either side of the Yellow Lion’s head, holding him in place as the green fire in its chest begins to glow.  _ No. No, no, no, no! _

“Aww no, not again! Oh no,  _ no no no no! _ ” Hunk cries with climbing fear and in desperation as our lions chase we fire, but the crystals block our every attack, the ro-beast keeps Hunk facing away from us,  _ we’re not gonna make it in time. _

Suddenly a slag of lava hurls through space from above and collides directly into the ro-beast’s chest, sending it reeling backwards and fortunately releasing Hunk. I let out a breath of relief as the Red Lion dives, Keith smirking verbally over the com, “Sorry I’m late, guys!” 

Immediately we circle the ro-beast like a pack of wolves and fire upon it, much to my pleasure with six lions we’re able to get plenty of hits on the beast, the crystals are only able to block two to four attacks at a time. Scorch marks light up its sides as the leftover burn of the Red Lion’s magma beam hardens to rock on its chest, further solidifying the crystal embedded there. 

“Okay, let’s form Voltron and take this thing down like we did last time!” Lance snaps in rapid fire, I have to nose dive out of the way as the ro-beast twists about while firing its lasers.

“I don’t think the ro-beast is gonna sit around and wait for us to transform.” Keith replies evenly as we return to our ravenous circling around the ro-beast.

“Keith’s right, we’ll need to think of something else!” Shiro barks.

“Hey, at least we outnumber these crystal shields!” Hunk replies breathlessly but in relief, my lion’s laser rocks my cabin as my blast sears the side of the ro-beast. 

“Yeah, he can only block two of us!” Lance cries enthusiastically in reply. 

I growl in frustration, my breath is growing shorter as I pant, “But our attacks that land don’t seem to be doing a whole lot of structural damage!”

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea!” Pidge gasps in dawning, “Guys, see if you can get me a open shot at its chest!” 

“Got it!” Shiro cries and together we double back, twisting around each other like a rope before we peel back towards the ro-beast, I watch the others and move in sync with them. We blast its crystals from the front as Pidge rises up, once we’re closer I watch as the Blue Lion fires its ice rays onto its shields and freeze them together. Pidge dives towards the ro-beast, I watch as the gun on its back engages and with a blast it collides with the crystal in its chest. Vines rip out from the metal around it and encase the crystal, but it still glows a malevolent purple as the beast struggles against the vine’s hold.  _ Not permanent, but it’ll hold it for a second. _

“Now form Voltron!” Shiro cries, and immediately we pull away and fall in formation, I close my eyes briefly and reach out my essence to the others. It’s harder for some reason, everyone feels a little indistinct like it was forming Voltron for the first time, but I still manage it fast enough that I don’t have much time to think on it. I open my eyes and look out the glass through the eyes of Voltron’s chest and with mutual understanding the Green and Red Lion’s snap together with a resounding purr, the large, red sword unsheathes between them with a burst of light. I feel Lance and Hunk engage the thrusters so I match it, pushing Voltron forward and gaining fast momentum as we hurtle towards the ro-beast, sword first. The ro-beast pulses, the vines falling dead from its body as it turns towards us, its arms swing and the crystals break from the ice, they clang around in front of it right as we connect. 

Voltron’s sword plunges straight through the crystals and into the crystal in the ro-beast’s chest, and with a twist of the Red Lion it breaks. The crystal shields fall away, flaking like snow flakes as the ro-beast rips itself off the sword, the pieces of the crystal in its heart break apart like glass and its body contorts. Flashes of green light shine from within the chinks in its armor and we back up just in time for the ro-beast to explode. Pieces of metal are sent flying in all directions, littered with crystal slivers like a broken mirror. 

I let out a shaky breath, relaxing my arms against the controls, “I think we got it for good this time. What do y’all say?”

“Great work Paladins!” Allura congratulates over the com and I let out a breath of relief to hear her voice sounding so level, “Now, return to the Castle so we can go to Olkarion!” 

“Okay hold up, before we break out of Voltron,” Hunk says quickly, “Will, can you hear us right now?”

I blink stupidly, “Uh… Yeah?”

“No, he means in your head. We can’t hear your thoughts anymore.” Pidge follows up, I can hear the confusion in her voice. 

“Oh.” I purse my lips and furrow my eyebrows, “No, I can’t hear you guys. That’s weird.”

“Let’s discuss this back at the Castle.” Shiro states pragmatically, and on command we separate into our individual lions. I let out another breath as I peel back in the direction of the Castle, and now that the immediate danger has passed my heart continues to hammer in equal parts leftover adrenaline and excitement.  _ The others are back. The Castle won’t be empty anymore. We’re together again and we’re headed to Olkarion. Thank fuck.  _

I settle my lion in her hanger before taking the elevator up to the bridge, where I meet with the others. As soon as we’re convened we walk to the center circle where Allura stands, the pillars receding into the floor. At the front of the ship is a long, hot dog shaped creature covered in blue and white, sleek fur, its lying on its side and typing with… four sets of arms at Coran’s station in the front.  _ Guess that’s Slav.  _

Keith speaks up as we collect, “Allura, have you heard from Coran?”

Allura doesn’t turn around, her hands hesitating where they hover over the holographic screen before her before she states in a biting tone,  _ “Yes.”  _

The silence is as sharp as the simple word, it’s so tangibly hostile that a lump forms in my throat, discomfort settling across my skin and coats the room like a blanket. 

Lance breaks the silence in a typical Lance manner, “ _ So  _ we get headed to Olkarion, now?” When I look over to him I’m shocked to see he has a sling over his shoulder and his right arm is cradled against his chest, my immediate reaction is shock and worry,  _ what the hell happened to his arm? _

“Yes!” Allura turns with a smile in such a dramatic shift in tone I swear I get whiplash as she beams in Lance’s direction, “I’ve checked in with Coran and the outer shell of the teludav is nearly complete!” She looks to her left fondly, “Hunk, thank you for getting the scaultrite.”

Hunk smiles sheepishly, “No problem.” I notice then with sudden shock that he looks…  _ bad.  _ Like, he looks like he got pummelled into the ground and then thrown into a bushfire, I swear I can see something red and raw on the back of and the front ofhis neck beneath his flight suit, but the strangest part is that he doesn’t otherwise seem to be acting strangely.  _ What in the- what’s happened to everyone? _ He looks at Allura and then to his left where Keith stands at his shoulder with his arms at his sides, “You know, Keith was there, too.” He says with a finger in his direction.

Allura doesn’t answer; her gaze lands on Keith and it’s so positively cold that it sends an icy dagger through my heart. Keith meets her gaze with what looks like a carefully constructed mask and after a moment Allura turns away, walking towards the doorway without a word in response. 

Something hot boils in the pit of my stomach and my mouth starts moving before my mind can think the better of it, “Allura,  _ what the hell? _ ”

“Will.” Shiro answers in a warning, yet carefully constructed tone; Allura briefly pauses and glances back at me, and now that that ice cold gaze pins me to the ground all it does is flare the fire burning inside me all the hotter.

I don’t pay Shiro any mind, I snap with something red hot spitting from between my teeth, “What is your problem? You can’t just go treating- ” 

“Will,  _ we’re not doing this right now. _ ” Shiro’s voice is sharp and leaves absolutely no room for question, it clams my mouth shut even as my gaze never leaves Allura’s. She merely looks on like my outburst is as interesting as a breeze before she walks out the door without looking back, and I’m so  _ so  _ tempted to march out after her, my tongue burns like I ate something spicy.  _ There’s no way that that’s okay. I don’t give a fuck how much you don’t like the Galra, you can’t just treat someone like they’re nothing more than something to look down upon, like he’s nothing but trash-  _

I whip around and my gaze locks firmly on Shiro and internally I balk at how intense his gaze is on mine but I have no intent on backing down.  _ This is a hill I’m willing to die on, you’ve gotta be kidding me if you think that this is okay. _ I think the others immediately sense what’s to come; the discomfort is so tangible in the air that I could probably reach out and grab it. Uncomfortably the others disperse towards their hangers, Hunk can’t get to his fast enough as he strides just barely below a downride speedwalk. I don’t bother waiting for them to escape, I immediately bare my teeth and verbally pounce on Shiro, “I can’t even  _ believe  _ you’re gonna let her go and act like that, why the  _ fuck _ are you  _ defending-! _ ”

The last elevator closes and Shiro immediately snaps at me with zero patience, “That’s enough!” Despite how much I really  _ don’t  _ want to shut up I do, something about the animosity in his tone makes my throat constrict. Shiro looks at me with steel for eyes and after a long moment he lets out a soft sigh, I can almost see him mentally counting to ten before he speaks again, this time in a much softer tone, “I understand how you’re feeling. I agree with you, how she’s treating Keith right now is not-”

My temper flares, “It’s downright shit!” I snarl, “I don’t fucking care if she’s a princess,  _ no one _ should be allowed to treat  _ anyone _ -” 

“Let me finish.” Shiro cuts me off, and although his tone is not nearly as harsh as it was before it does immediately shut me up, and this time I don’t plan on opening my mouth again. My chest aches; I  _ hate  _ what I just had to witness, it makes me feel like sparks are on my tongue and under my skin but the next closest thing to that horrible sensation is being the target of the frustration and borderline anger in Shiro’s eyes. 

I swallow as Shiro’s gaze softens, he reaches out and touches my shoulder, focusing my attention solely on him, “You’ve got to understand what her perspective is. The Galra are the people who destroyed her home planet, her entire civilization and all of her people. That’s not a wound that can be healed over the course of a few days.” 

I meet Shiro’s eyes evenly and he looks right back at me, and after several seconds of silence, I think it’s Shiro giving me permission to speak. So, hesitantly, I do, in a small, vulnerable voice that barely sounds like mine, “But Keith didn’t do that. He doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with them just because they share DNA.” 

“I know.” Shiro murmurs soothingly, his thumb rubs the space between my armor on my shoulder against my flight suit, “And she knows that, too. She just needs time to come around. But we can’t force her to. That’s something she has to do on her own, and she needs the space to be able to do that.” 

Despite the frustration that hones in on me from all sides, making it hard to think straight… I realize he’s right.  _ What good would it do for me to chew Allura out for how she just acted except to piss her off more and maybe even inhibit her from coming to terms with it. It’s not right. I know it’s not, she shouldn’t have to ‘come to terms’ with it but… Fuck damnit. Shiro’s right. It’s not my place to interfere, to play the guardian.  _

_ I am the last person who has the right to talk.  _

“... I’m sorry.” I mutter, my gaze dropping to the floor as I let out a heavy sigh. I want to say more but I feel that there’s nothing I can say that isn’t an excuse so I don’t. I just stare at my boots and think to myself  _ I was just so happy the others are finally here but now I’ve made the atmosphere so uncomfortable we’re probably gonna avoid each other for the rest of the night. I’m gonna be alone, again, and this might be even worse than being literally alone.  _

“It’s okay. How you feel isn’t wrong.” I look up to meet Shiro’s gaze hesitantly, and with an affectionate touch his forehead bumps mine just for a moment before he pulls away, “You’ve just gotta learn some discipline. When you disagree, whether you’re in the right or not, you can’t always go running in guns blazing.”

I let out a soft breath, even though fresh ice clings to the leftover fire in my heart I allow myself to joke half heartedly, “I’ll work on it… They don’t call people with red hair hotheads for nothing, you know.” 

Shiro chuckles and pats my shoulder, right as I hear a painfilled groan over the com. Both Shiro and I start and immediately I touch my helmet, “Hey, you alright?”

“Oh, oh man,” Hunk whimpers, “I think… Okay, so that ro-beast’s laser got me real good and now I’m feeling really bad, I think I need to go to a healing pod.” 

“I’m already on my way there with Lance,” Pidge replies crisply.

I look over at Shiro with furrowed eyebrows and wide eyes, “What the fuck  _ happened  _ to you guys?”

Shiro answers me with furrowed eyebrows, “Lance broke his arm when we were escaping Beta Traz. Pidge sprained her wrist but her stone healed her-”

“I think that ro-beast’s beam  _ really _ got me good. This is kinda bad.” Hunk hisses in pain and it makes my spine stiffen. 

Immediately I make my way to the Yellow Lion’s elevator, “Hunk I’m on my way down.”

_ “Oh thank crow.” _ Hunk whimpers again as the doors close around me, my momentary anger and frustration is replaced with all consuming worry, I can’t get down fast enough. When the doors open I see Hunk is half out of his armor and the top of his flight suit is off, hanging around his waist and that’s when I see the charred skin of his back, it’s  _ badly  _ burned and it makes my stomach crawl just to look at it. He hears the door open and turns towards me with watery tears in his eyes and I can see his chest is just as burned, it’s like his chest was shot with hot acid,  _ my God _ . 

“It’s not too bad.” I murmur, biting my lip as I take a step towards him, holding my hands up towards him for him to take, “Come on, let’s get you to the healing pods, okay? Do you need a hand?”

Hunk sniffles and wipes his eyes, his hands look unharmed, the burn starts about mid-bicep, it ends just above his collarbone, it’s red and raw, at least a second degree burn. “ _ OW!  _ Aww, it just hurts more when I cry!” He laments, holding his hands outright towards me, that’s when I see his lion’s stone sitting on the bench beside him. 

“Hunk, what the fuck, put your fucking stone on!” I growl in worry and immediately rush towards him and grab it, pressing the smoothed dandelion surface into his large hands. 

He curls his nose with a whine, “The chain was rubbing on my neck and making it feel worse! I coul-  _ oh. _ ” He stills, his eyes widening as he looks down at his hand. I watch the stone begin to glow like a sun resting in the palm of his hand, the golden beams shining through his fingers and then we watch as the light sinks into his skin. The light trails where his veins are, like his blood has turned into rivers of liquid gold that shines through his skin and races up his forearm, spreading throughout his being until his arms and chest are snaked with rivers of golden light that shines beneath the dark hues of his skin, stopping just beneath his jawline. The burns begin to heal, slowly but surely I watch as the red flesh lessens, new skin extending from the edges and melting over the burn, like lava moving with slow deliberance across the earth, save with vis versa colors.

_ “... Oh.” _ Hunk mutters, looking down at his arms and then his chest with a soft, sleepy sigh, “ _ Wow _ this feels amazing. I didn’t know that my stone could do this! I knew yours could, but… wow, look at this!” He holds out his arms towards me, pointing to the golden light beneath his skin, “This is  _ so cool!  _ Pidge! Oh hold on wait,” Hunk shuffles to grab his helmet where he dropped it to the ground and hurriedly shoves it back on his head, “Pidge! When you’ve got Lance put in the healing pod, you’ve gotta come check this out! I’m glowing!” 

“Lance is in,” Pidge reports, her words are short and choppy, “I’m on my way down now. Someone tell Shiro that Lance is in the pod for five hours.”

“Copy that.” Shiro responds over the com. 

I touch Hunk’s wrist and suddenly compelled I yank off my gloves, touching his skin with my fingertips and trailing where the golden light in his veins shines through, like the colorful cracks in marble. They’re warm to the touch, not unnaturally so, but warmer than the skin around it, and just touching them I can feel something like power coursing underneath his skin, like how I can feel the energy of my lion’s particle barrier by resting my hand upon it. “This is really cool.” I murmur, flickering to Hunk’s gaze where it follows my hands, “Has it always done this?”

“Uh, not that I noticed. But I’ve also been in my flight suit for a long time.” Hunk makes a face with a curled nose, “I need to shower so bad.” 

I roll my eyes at him and let his hand fall as I examine his chest again. “I think you’ll be fixed up in a minute or so.” I murmur, kneeling down and picking up my gloves again, “Are you gonna be okay?” 

Hunk nods, his tears are long gone even though his eyes are still red in the corners as remnants of where they were before, “Yeah, I feel a lot better now. Thanks, Will.” He holds his stone aloft in his hands before he lets out a breath, letting it hang back over his neck as he grumbles, “I’ve never been much of a necklace person, but… this is the good stuff right here.” When the stone rests on the middle of his chest its light seems to shine brighter, a gentle, golden pulse emanating from it and through the lights under his skin like he’s a motherboard. 

I let out a low whistle, “Hunk… that’s so  _ fucking cool _ .” 

Hunk looks up at me with a bright smile right as Pidge breaks into the room. When she sees Hunk without a shirt she immediately covers her eyes, “Ah! You didn’t tell me you were naked!”

“Just no shirt.” I chuckle with a conciliatory tone, reaching forward and touching her arms to pull her forward, “And you’re gonna wanna see this.”

Slowly, at my behest, Pidge allows her hands to fall, and when her gaze locks on Hunk her jaw immediately drops, “Oh! What the-  _ interesting _ .” She takes off her helmet and drops it to the floor, approaching and wasting no time getting in Hunk’s personal space, which he doesn’t seem to mind as he moves with her compliance as she lifts his arms and works her way around him, examining the lights under his skin with careful prods of her fingers, “Has this ever happened before?” She demands, lifting up an arm over his head and looking at a stretch of muscle just behind his shoulderblade.

Hunk shakes his head as he watches Pidge with a look like that of a kid at a doctor’s office, “No, not that I know of.” 

I cross my arms over my chest, speaking with small hand gestures, “Maybe it’s because it’s healing him?”

Pidge purses her lips as she pauses in front of him, holding his stone in her hand. Its light shines across the lenses of her glasses like she’s investigating the sun itself, “Perhaps.” She grabs his hand suddenly and tugs him away, half naked and all out of his armory, “Come on, I wanna hook up your stone to my analyzer before it goes away!”

“Okay…!” Hunk stumbles after her with two left feet, “I’m coming, I’m coming, geez!” 

I let out a soft breath when I’m left alone in Hunk’s armory, now with the new worry sated I head back to my hanger to change out of my armor. 

I have to take deep breaths all the while. From the borderline righteous anger that still resides like hot coals under my ribs to the icy awkwardness encasing my lungs that spikes my anxiety to new and horrible levels, it takes me a long while to calm down enough to relax.  _ At least Hunk’s okay. And now Lance is in the healing pod, from a broken arm apparently…  _ I don’t leave my armory until I’m able to be breathe with ease, and from there I head out towards my room. 

_ Olkarion isn’t far from the Balmera. I think we’ll get there by nightfall.  _

_ Hopefully I don’t have to go to sleep alone in the Castle again tonight. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is Let's Hurt Tonight by OneRepublic  
> Y'all we getting to the bits I've //REALLY/// wanted to write ever since I started this thing, chapters are gonna be turning and burning because I'm simply that excited.  
> You are not prepared.


	13. Reflections and Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Paladins sudden return from their individual missions to defeat the return of the second ro-beast, the team is happy to be back together again after a long time apart. Well... long, at least, for them. It may have been a blessing in disguise, however, as time to oneself is a time for introspection, a chance to gain a better understanding of oneself and of others. Or, at least, that's what Will's been doing. Little does he know that he's not the only one.  
> Most important to him and to the rest of the team is that they're back together again; they didn't realize how much they'd miss one another for the few days apart, but what this HAS helped them realize is that their bonds to one another run deeper than they ever could've expected when they decided to plunge through that random wormhole a month ago in the skull of an anthropomorphic alien war machine. Introspection on themselves has happened, on their relationships with their team members have happened, and now it's time to look back on their past to look forward to the future.  
> ** Warning: explicit nsfw at the end, brief mentioning of scars and evidence of surgical procedures (it'll make sense when you get there)**

Relief as a concept doesn’t full encapsulate how happy I am that the others are back from their missions, even despite it being because of a slightly life threatening situation; the halls are vibrating with activity and frankly I could not be more grateful. As I head to get some lunch there’s no identifiable sound of life, but there just doesn’t seem to be as much _silence_ as before, the very walls seem to thrum with the added bodies in the building and it sets my mind very much at ease.

I’m alone in the kitchen when I go searching for food, which is fine by me considering how I still feel a bit like a half-burnt firecracker and need a second to recollect myself after the tumultuous emotions I just experienced. I pour myself a bowl of food goo and set it on the counter to eat, resting my chin in my hand as my mind lulls itself through a dizzying amount of thoughts in an attempt to settle my feelings. _So, Lance broke his arm while breaking Slav out. I wonder how that happened. I’m glad that at least now he’s okay. I never would’ve known he got hurt until I saw him on the bridge with the sling, where did that even come from? Did he really pilot his lion that whole time with a broken arm? That’s… kind of metal as fuck. Especially considering how often that kid complains. I wonder where the fuzzy guy’s at now, the noodle-y fellow, Slav. I wonder what he’s like; guy’s a supposed genius who invented space-time folding technology and he knows a thing or two about teludavs - which are apparently an “ancient technology” so that’s interesting - so I can’t imagine he’s boring. I wonder how Hunk and Keith’s mission went. I wonder what the fuck a Weblum is, since that’s where they had to go to extract it._

_Fuck._

_Keith probably still has my lion’s stone._

_I need to get that from him. And I need to apologize for being a dick before he left because that’s been tormenting me every damn minute of the day since. But I_ **_hate_ ** _apologizing. But I need to. He deserves to be treated better and I’ve got to make sure he knows that._

 _Speaking of the stones, I should head down to the Green Lion’s hanger and see if Pidge and Hunk have got something. That glowing thing he’s got going on is seriously cool, and I wanna know more about what it is and what it’s doing because something tells me it’s not just simply from healing him. I mean, if it was then why does only Hunk glow? I feel like we would’ve noticed if Pidge glowed green when she gets healed. I don’t think I would’ve been able to tell, white light coming from me… yeah, ginger skin says no._ I finish eating and put my bowl away in the washer before I head back down towards the hangers, I tap the panel next to the door for the time. 1pm. _Pidge says Lance is in the pod for five hours so that means he’ll probably get out around 6._

I take my time heading through the Castle halls, now that the adrenaline of the battle has all but faded it’s replaced with simple exhaustion. _Started off the day rock climbing in and out of the Balmera to get a huge ass crystal, then proceeded to fight the ro-beast, pile that on the emotional turmoil that’s accumulated and all in all, I wanna go the fuck to bed._

I make it down to the Green Lion’s hanger right as Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro are leaving it, Pidge and Shiro are no longer in their armor but Hunk’s put his armor back on since I last saw him, he’s no longer running around bare chested. He beams when he spots me, “Hey man! We were about to take all that scaultrite from my lion to the main hanger so we can get it out when we get to Olkarion.”

I nod and move to follow, “Sounds like you could use a hand.” I turn my attention to Pidge with a raised eyebrow as I fall in step with the trio, “Did you find anything interesting about Hunk’s glowing?”

Pidge shakes her head with a sigh, “Nothing. It went away after he was all healed up. It’s just like when my stone is healing me in terms of energy frequencies and wavelengths, I couldn’t make out anything distinguishable coming from his stone.” 

“Yeah, except that it makes me freaking _glow_ like a torba star!” Hunk whirls about on the ball of his foot with a dramatic _pow_ sound as we enter the Yellow Lion’s hanger, I snicker with a grin in response. The Yellow Lion rests on its side like a knocked out, sleeping cat, its large jaw is slightly parted and its underbelly doors are open, revealing the darkness inside the Yellow Lion’s stomach. 

“Oh, but we did learn something about my lion’s stone while we were at Beta Traz!” Pidge exclaims suddenly with almost tangible excitement, hopping on her feet as she whirls to walk backwards so she’s facing me, “It’s a universal interface!”

I blink once, twice, before I mutter, “Uh… and that is?” 

Shiro’s voice rumbles in response, “When we were separated on Beta Traz Pidge needed something of Galra tech to interface with the command center.”

Pidge bobs her head and then gestures towards Shiro, “Yeah, usually Shiro’s arm would do the trick but we’d already split up so I was trying to think of what to do when my stone started glowing,” She pulls on its chain where it sits around her neck just beneath her hoodie, yanking it out into full view. I can clearly see now that it has a bright green light within it that pulses regularly, it’s like watching a heart beating in her hand as Pidge continues in rapid fire, “When I touched it to the command center, it automatically opened up everything for me! I didn’t even have to bring down any firewalls, it bypassed them _all_ , like a master key!” She grins brightly at me as we come to a stop next to the Yellow Lion, dropping her stone back to her chest. “How freaking _awesome_ is that?!” 

“We also learned that it can’t heal across paladins.” Shiro continues, his arms are crossed as Hunk clambers into his lion and out of sight, I figure to get the scaultrite from wherever it rests within. “When Pidge gave Lance her stone it didn’t heal his arm like your stone does.” 

I furrow my eyebrows and regard Shiro with a skeptical look, “Well I dunno if my stone could heal a bone or not, it’s only ever healed flesh wounds.” 

“Trust me when I say that it wasn’t doing anything. Its energy like… shut off. It stopped glowing and everything, like it flipped the power switch.” Pidge frowns, waving a hand vaguely at me, “So that’s something special that only your lion’s stone can do, apparently.” Pidge’s expression suddenly does a 180 as she grins, “ _But_ mine can probably hack into _any_ system so, _you know_ .” Pidge’s expression is downright impish and wicked as she bares her teeth, I find myself suddenly very happy that Pidge is on our side. _Hack any system, huh? Sounds like the perfect ability for Pidge’s stone to grant her, or at least one that plays the strongest into her skillset._

“We’ll have to test the extent of that later.” Shiro’s eyes are soft and playful as he regards Pidge, a far cry from how he was looking at me earlier and just remembering that makes my skin feel like its shrinking against my skeleton. _Officially found the worst feeling ever, and it’s being the target of Shiro’s disappointed frustration. I suppose it’s because he’s so calm and charismatic all the time that he doesn’t typically get upset, so when he does it’s particularly awful. I’ve never been much of a people pleaser, but now I definitely am gonna be bending over backwards to put myself back in his good graces again. Or maybe I never left, maybe I just pressed all his buttons too hard after a tiring fight after conducting a prison break and he’d had enough. That is also valid. Nonetheless I’m definitely not going to try and piss him off again._

From inside the Yellow Lion we hear Hunk’s groans and complaints, I see his form and quickly back up as he brings out eight massive, orbular bags on the ground, he has his hands on two and the other two he kicks out of the hull. The bags make him look like a twig in comparison as he climbs out of the Yellow Lion, he sets them down in a massive pile with a _phew_ before he rests his hands on his hips, “Alright, so they’re not really heavy, they’re just kinda unwieldy, I think we can manage one trip if we grab two a person.” 

Pidge curls her nose and mumbles, “... I think I’ll just spot you guys.” 

I stick my tongue out at her playfully as I reach down and grab onto the edge of one bag but when I tug it doesn’t budge. I blink, using my other hand to grab the lip of the bag and pull with all my might but I barely am able to drag it an inch across the floor, it’s like a boulder sitting on the floor of the hanger. “What the hell?” I huff, letting go as I look over to Shiro to see how he’s faring, really it’s to see if I’m actually just that weak. He’s managed to get a grip on it with his prosthetic but he’s unable to truly lift it with only the one arm, it’s too large for a good angle. He looks at me and I at him, and then I look at the four bags Hunk set on the floor beside him. Bags he bore single handedly out of his lion with ease. 

“... What?” Hunk blinks innocently, looking about as perplexed as we feel. 

Pidge’s thought process is far ahead of us, “Hunk?” She pushes her glasses up her nose as she studies his form, “Take off your stone real quick.” 

“What? Why?” Hunk asks with growing confusion, turning to look at Shiro and I for answers, but apparently he finds nothing in our expressions so he grabs his stone where it rests beneath his breastplate and takes it off, holding it out to Pidge, “What do you think is-” 

He trails off as she takes it at hand, looking down at it briefly before she raises her head to eye Hunk again, “Now try lifting up the bags.” 

Hunk purses his lips, “I mean, sure, I don’t think that it’s - _oh whoa!_ ” He reached down to grab the bags where he had them before but this time when he goes to pull them up they don’t budge, nearly sending him tumbling forward. Hunk blinks stupidly at the bags and then at his hands before he tries again, with just as much success as the first time. 

Pidge steps towards him and as he’s struggling she drapes his lion’s stone back over his head and suddenly I can see the sunshine light reflecting on his throat as Hunk yanks on the bags again. This time they practically sail in the air, he pulled them so hard they make him stumble until he falls onto his back with a sharp cry. 

I let out a low whistle. “Holy shit, Hunk.” I murmur, my eyes flown wide, “The Yellow Lion’s stone gives you super strength.”

“Whoa, _really?!_ ” Hunk gasps in excitement as he pulls himself back upright, looking around with wide eyes before he looks at Shiro, who still holds his prosthetic hand tightly to the lip of a bag, and then lets out a whoop and a holler, _“Holy crow! I’ve got super strength!”_

“Don’t let it get to your head.” Pidge grumbles as she straightens her glasses. 

I let go of the edge of the bag, resting my hands on my hips as I raise an eyebrow over at Pidge, “Guess that must be why he glows like that.” I glance back over at Hunk and grin, “Gotta be careful when you’re hugging us, now.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow as he abandons the bag on the floor, letting out a soft pant, “Did you really think that these bags were light?”

Hunk taps his fingertips together sheepishly, “Well uh… I dunno, I didn’t really think about it at the time, I was just happy to get out of there!” He shudders suddenly and shakes his head with a disgusted curl of his lip, “I mean, I swam in blood, I fell in stomach acid, and then as if that wasn’t enough I was farted out of a _world eating worm_ to get the stuff, _I had a lot on my mind!_ ” 

I make a face of absolute appallment as Hunk lifts up four bags at a time, two in each hand, and throws them over his shoulders like he’s Atlas as he starts to walk out, “So I guess I’ll carry these myself then, ‘cause I’ve got _super strength._ Haha, _yeah_ , that’s what I’m talking about!” 

I look over at Pidge and she at me as Hunk leaves the hanger with the bags at hand, and jokingly I smirk, “I think it went to his head.”

“... Alright.” Shiro crosses his arms with a soft breath as he glances over at the two of us, “So we’re starting to learn that each of the stones have their own unique abilities.” 

Pidge nods, counting on her fingers, “They can all heal us when we’re injured, Hunk proved that earlier, but apparently only yours can heal other people, too.” Pidge hums thoughtfully as she throws a gesture in my direction, her eyebrows furrowed before she speaks again, “I wonder if it’s only for other paladins, or if you could heal anyone.” 

I let out a clueless noise and shrug. “Fuck if I know, man.” 

Hunk returns to the hanger with a pep in his step, flashing us broad smiles as he picks up the remaining four bags of scaultrite and hauls them out, looking about as inconvenienced as someone walking four obedient dogs down the street. All the while I can hear him muttering excitedly to himself, _“Yeah, super strength, nyoom, super.”_

_That’s fucking precious._

“I wonder if each of us has more than one ability through our stones, or if what we have is it.” Pidge continues with a thoughtful finger pressed to her lips, “‘Cause Will’s also got that quintessence transmutation ability, now.” I bite the inside of my cheek as Pidge gestures towards Shiro with her chin, “And I wonder what kind of stuff _you_ guys will be able to do with your stones when you get them.” 

Intrigued by a thought, I pursue it verbally with my hands poised in the air, “Each of our stones’ abilities make sense when we keep in mind our lion’s priorities.” I look over at Pidge with both my hands gesturing towards the stone hanging around her neck, “The Green Lion’s all about intelligence and wisdom, understanding of the world, right? And you unlocked it after you had that revelation on Olkarion about how everything is connected.” 

Pidge nods, murmuring thoughtfully under her breath, “We’re all made of the same cosmic dust.” 

I point to Pidge with a gesture of _case in point_ , “Yeah, exactly. So it makes sense that it’ll have the ability to get in with different types of computers or whatever because that’s your lion’s thing; everything is connected, so your stone helps you to connect to everything.” I gesture back towards where Hunk left, “And leg of Voltron? Super strength?” 

Shiro nods thoughtfully, his gentle overcast gaze moves to me as he speaks, “And your lion values putting yourself above the needs of others, so your stone can heal anyone. Like you said, it makes sense.”

“Well, I think that that’s got a bit of a limit, though.” I turn as Hunk walks back into the room, dusting his hands off as he approaches with an analytic, thoughtful expression that matches the tone of his words, “Keith got hit in the face while we were on the Weblum, it didn’t hurt him or anything but it did make his lip bleed. He had your stone on him but it didn’t heal the cut until we wormholed back to the Castle, but when we did it started to glow immediately and then it was healed up pretty fast.” 

Pidge tilts her head in thought, “Perhaps it’s a proximity thing and the White Lion was just too far away.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow over at me with an aside tone, “He still has your stone?” 

I bite my lip hesitantly and shrug, “Yeah, I forgot to ask for it back before y’all left.”

“Pfft, yeah, _forgot._ ” Pidge echoes in a teasing tone with a knowing wink in my direction. 

Before I can defend myself Hunk does it for me, “No, it’s not like that.” He shakes his head, jutting a thumb over his shoulder at the hanger doorway but as he goes to speak he pauses, smiling sheepishly over in my direction, “We uh… kinda had a heart to heart about it.” He straightens, his hands planted on his hips as he grins sheepishly, “I mean I gotta say, Keith turning Galra is kinda helping him to be a better human.” 

I snort and shake my head, pinching my nose as I try not to laugh and instead focus more on the former part of the sentence, “... Alright, okay, hold on, what do you mean you talked about it?”

Hunk crosses his arms suddenly, his gaze flickering to the side, “Uh, yeah, we were flying through space together for like, two whole days, so yeah we talked! All the time! Like a really long slumber party that’s also a road trip that’s also a mission to save the world, you know?” 

Pidge’s eyes narrow  at Hunk with a playful spark within, “You’re evading the question.”

Hunk almost visibly begins to sweat, “What? Me? _No!_ ” He smiles awkwardly and stands stiff like there’s a plank of wood strapped to his back, “What’re you, what’re we, what are, what’re you talking about?” He stammers before his gaze lands on the door of his armory to my left, already planning an escape route. 

“Alright, alright, quit interrogating him.” Shiro budges in with a charismatic tone, resting his hand on Pidge’s shoulder, “It’s about time we had some dinner before we get to Olkarion.”

“Oh, I’m in!” Hunk practically does a 180 turn in emotional direction as he skips towards his armory, “But first, I’ve gotta shower. Like, _so bad._ ” 

Pidge curls her nose as she looks over at me with a wicked smirk, “You know it’s bad if he wants to do that _before_ food.” I snicker and ruffle her hair, to which she smacks my hands away with a growl of complaint.

“We’ll wait for you in the dining room.” Shiro calls to him before he wheels Pidge and I out of the hanger, leaving Hunk behind. 

“Okay, so back to the stones real quick,” Pidge retraces our steps as Shiro pushes us out into the communal hanger, “In light of what you said, Will, I think I know the reason why you couldn’t hear us in Voltron earlier.”

I furrow my eyebrows, letting my hands fall to my sides, “Yeah, that was really bizarre. It was also kind of harder for me to latch onto everybody, when we’re forming it. What’s your theory?” 

Pidge nods with a snap of her fingers as we turn down the hall towards the kitchen, “I think it’s because you didn’t have your stone. It’s like… the connection between you and your lion and then to us, right? So without it you can’t get in our heads nor us into yours. Err… I don’t think it’s getting _in_ each other’s heads, though, it’s more like all of our thoughts are on one communal plane. Thinking together.” She huffs, waving a hand at me with a grumble, “You know what I mean.”

I raise an eyebrow before looking up at Shiro with a wide, sarcastic grin, “Oh, you hear that, Shiro? Gotta get us some of that _togetherness_ and _teamwork_.”

Shiro gives me an exhausted look and Pidge and I together snicker like kids who pulled off a successful prank. 

After a beat’s silence I smirk, glancing over at Shiro and Pidge with a raised eyebrow, “So hey, how’s it feel to officially be criminals?” When the pair blink at me cluelessly I elaborate, “You broke someone out of a high security prison that was built just for them, like, damn, if that ain’t a heist then what is?” 

“Oh, it was _insane_ , man.” Pidge immediately erupts in explanations so fast that my head almost begins to spin as we head down the hall and into the kitchen, “What got us tripped up was there was a _second_ prison cell in the facility, but we didn’t know which one Slav was in so Shiro and Lance had to check both, and apparently there was what’s called a yupper in the other, the warden at Beta Traz was keeping it as a pet and Lance thought it was Slav because all it would say was _‘Yup.’_ ” Pidge’s voice drops significantly when saying the _yup_ , her eyebrow cocking as her smirk broadens. Shiro has a bowl filled with goo at the ready as Pidge grabs bowls from the cabinets, I assist by snatching the spoons as we head together towards the dining room. “It’s funny now looking back.” Pidge continues. Suddenly her eyes soften, the cider hues reflect like amber glass in the light of the Castle halls as she speaks in a softer tone, “Oh and I… I found information about Matt.” 

Immediately my attention is snatched, I hone in on her expression with full focus, “What? That’s great! What’ve you found?”

Pidge’s eyebrows furrow and for a moment my heart stills, ready for the worst until she speaks, “I found a video of a group of rebels breaking him out of a prison with a bunch of other prisoners. When I looked at the location it showed he was being held captive in one of the outer reaches of the Vylnuri system, way way on the fringes of the known universe, at least according to the Galra’s map they had on Beta Traz.”

Shiro’s attention is equally focused on Pidge as he reaches over and rests his hand on her shoulder with an affirming nod, “They can’t have gone far. We’ll find them.”

Pidge sighs, furrowing her eyebrows as she replies in a dark twist of her voice, “It was filmed six months after you all went missing.” 

_Oh._

_So he’s not in Galra hands anymore, at least we know that, but… he could now be anywhere in space. And has been for the past year and a half. Oh. That’s why she’s so down. This is worse than starting off from scratch, at least before it was ‘find the right Galra facility’. Now… he could literally be anywhere._

_Shit._

“If anyone can track him down, it’s you.” Shiro states with total confidence, giving her a gentle look and a squeeze on the shoulder. Pidge seems to appreciate this, a slight smile appearing across her features as she wraps her arms around the bowls pressed to her chest. It’s then that I notice just how… _small_ Pidge is, and not just literally - I can rest my chin on top of her head - but in that she’s also only fourteen. _Fourteen._ Fourteen and the weight of the universe is almost literally on her shoulders, she’s trying to find out what happened to her family after they got kidnapped by _aliens_ , those same aliens that she now fights in a massive war machine that’s telepathically linked to her. _That’s insane. This is so much. I don’t even know how I can possibly begin to help._

 _Maybe a distraction can be a good start._ Silence follows as we head towards the dining room, and from within the infirmary I can feel the spirit of Lance McClain channel through me and inspire me to start rambling to fill the quiet with something else to change the subject, “So Allura started teaching me some stuff on our way to the Balmera,” I start off with a cheesy grin, speaking animately with my hands, “First was how to fight better. Well, she more like beat the shit out of me, literally. For real, she threw my meat suit up and down the training deck, I swear I’ve got so many bruises,” I gesture to my sides as if case in point, lifting my shirt experimentally to see if this is true when I find one, yellowy and blue right at the bottom of my rib cage, “Yup, there’s one. But yeah, so that was fun, and then yesterday she helped me learn how to move around in zero G, which is, ya know, _helpful_.” When we get to the dining room I plop down in a chair, kicking my feet up on the table as Shiro and Pidge sit down to eat, “Unfortunately I still don’t know what the fuck a flaxum is, though.” I sit up with a start as the pair begin to eat, gasping as the memory strikes me upside the head, “Oh, and one of y’all remind me to tell Hunk that Shay said hi.”

Pidge immediately breaks into a wide grin, “Oh yeah, I’m sure he’ll be stoked to hear from his _giiirlfriend._ ” 

I rest my chin in my hand as I chuckle in response. After a few more seconds of silence I continue in a low, thoughtful voice, “You know, I totally forgot how huge the Balmerans are. Like, giants.” I hold a hand up high as if case in point before folding my hands on the table, “While we’re on the subject actually, Shiro, officially, how tall are you?” 

Shiro blinks at me with a spoon of goo hovering tentatively by his lips, “Um… 6’2…? Why?”

“You’ve been my mental standard at how tall alien races are.” I reply simply, drumming my fingers on the table top, “Like Shay is a head taller than you, you come up to the Taujeerians’ shoulders, the Arusians to the top of your thighs… you know, like that.”

Pidge snickers at me as she waves her spoon, some goo drips to the table as she grins, “That’s actually a great unit of measurement when it comes to relativity, because as the tallest in our group you’re still a height that is easy to visualize for us, tall but not obscenely so, so we can compare you to different races we encounter as a point of reference.” 

I nod and snap my fingers at Pidge, “Precisely.”

Shiro’s ears turn red as he chuckles under his breath, “… I’m happy to help?” 

“So Pidge, this begs the question…” I raise an eyebrow over at her with a cocky grin, “How tall are _you_?” 

“Depends.” Pidge replies, taking a moment to eat her goo before she looks over at me with a deadpan expression, “How much do you value your kneecaps?”

“Alright, whose kneecaps are we splicing now?” I look up as Hunk walks into the room, making himself at home at the table and grabbing a bowl of goo. His dark brown hair is almost black, still wet from the shower and tied back with the orange ribbon he always wears around his forehead, wearing a cozy yellow vest over a earth tone shirt and those cargo shorts he always tends to wear, it’s truly a Hunk aesthetic. 

“Lookin’ fresh.” I remark with a teasing lilt in my voice.

Pidge turns towards Hunk with a continuously straight face, “Oh, Will was just asking me about my height.” 

Hunk immediately gives me a tired look, his hand out flat in a _seriously_ gesture, “Dude, do you have a death wish?” 

I throw my head back with a dramatic groan, _“Ugh, yes, bring me that sweet release!”_ Pidge reaches over and smacks me in the chest playfully and I can’t help but laugh with a wicked smirk.  

Hunk brightens suddenly, speaking around a mouthful of goo, “Okay so wisten, weal tawk hewe, when we get to Owkarion, I have a feewing that there’s gonna be anoder pawty.” 

Immediately my eyes widen, “Oh no. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Pidge and I make eye contact and together we state in complete sync, _“Keep Keith and Lance away from the friend juice.”_

The door opens and my heart stutters to a stop when Keith walks in. _Speak of the devil._ He too looks freshly showered, his hair is floofy and towel dried and never in my _life_ have I ever been so tempted to run up to him and ruffle his hair. It looks so… _ruffleable_ , like a puppy’s floppy ears. The only thing that makes it worse is that he’s got that _damn jacket_ . _Fuck._

_Oh right. I still have to apologize to him. Gay excitement muted a bit._

“You hear that Keith?” Pidge cries, breaking the mental trance I found myself in as she rests her arms on the back of the chair, “No friend juice drinking competitions for you!” 

Internally I wanna scream _please don’t bring up the last time we were here because I don’t wanna know if he remembers what happened there or not_ but I know that that would be suspicious as hell so I keep quiet and busy my hands instead. My hunger has returned so I scoop up some dinner for me to eat so I don’t stare at Keith’s _stupid, fluffy hair, his stupid, pretty eyes, and his stupid, fucking face-_

“Hmm, why? Afraid you’ll lose?” He counters with a husky voice that almost literally makes me shiver, I risk a glance up at him as he sits down at the table for some food goo. He looks to be on the verge of smirking, his indigo gaze is alight and challenging as he locks in on Pidge. _Damn. Apparently two day’s hiatus has done literally nothing but made me gayer for Keith._

Pidge, unfortunately, is not immune to the stare. “... Oh, you’re _so_ tempting fate.” She grumbles with narrowed eyes, her fists planted firmly on the table as she meets his gaze with equal challenge. 

Hunk looks between them with wide eyes as he holds up his hands, “Alright, so I hate to be the voice of reason here, as always, but if this friend juice stuff really is alcoholic then Pidge, you know your body mass is smaller than Keith’s and so you’ll get drunker faster and-” 

“All the more reason why my victory will be sweeter.” Pidge smirks broadly as she eyes Keith with the burn of olympic fire before she ducks her head and begins shoveling goo in her mouth, in between bites she cries, “The more food in my stomach is more places for it to go before it’s filtered through my liver! You’re so going down!” 

Shiro looks on with wide eyes before he holds up his hands in a calming gesture, “Alright now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’re flying to Olkarion to see their progress on the teludav, I doubt they’ve planned any sort of party.” He points a finger then at Pidge with such a paternal expression it’s almost comical, “And _you_ shouldn’t be having any friend juice at all. You’re only fourteen!” 

Pidge blows a raspberry at Shiro rebelliously, “Oh yeah? And what’re you gonna do, you gonna _arrest me_ ?” She pauses in her sudden mission to consume all the food goo to sit up as straight as possible, “Besides, I’m a Paladin of Voltron! _And_ we are on another planet, so different laws and rules apply!” 

I snort and can’t help but shake my head, “Hell yeah, let’s bring back the whole _sex, drugs, and rock and roll_ bit on a cosmic level.” 

Hunk gasps, his eyes are wide and shocked, “Holy crow, let’s _not_ do that!” 

I pout over in his direction, giving him large, faux puppy eyes, “Aww, why? What if I _wanna_ get hooked on heroine?” 

Shiro chokes on goo, “ _Will._ ” He’s red in the face from trying not to laugh as he clears his throat, trying to sound serious but rather his voice comes out amused, “You are a _terrible_ influence.” 

“Please, I can make my own decisions! I’m a strong, independent woman who don’t need no space dad to tell _me_ what to do!” Pidge sways her shoulders in a exaggerated sassy movement, lifting her head high as she looks over at Shiro with a challenging look, “You should join in, Shiro! I bet I could drink more friend juice than you, too!” 

“Oh man.” Hunk’s eyes widen as he looks over at me from across the table, “This is such a bad idea.” 

I grin wickedly as I look over to a flabberghasted Shiro, “My money’s on you.” 

Shiro snaps out of his shocked state and waves his hands in a more firm, silencing motion, “Alright, alright, that’s enough of that.” Now he sounds completely serious, any trace of amusement from before is gone as he speaks in the tone worthy of a commanding officer, “We’ve got a job to do, and we need to focus on the teludav when we land on Olkarion. Parties are not our concern right now. Got it?” 

Reluctantly we murmur in agreement. After a few minutes I finish up my food goo and stand up, “Anyone got the time?” 

Pidge touches a white bracelet around her left wrist and produces a small holographic screen, reporting back, “Almost 1800.” 

I frown over at her with crossed arms, “Oh, _bleh_ to you and your _military time_.” 

“So Lance will be waking up soon.” Shiro stands as well, giving me a serious nod as he addresses the others, “Let’s go and greet him when he gets out. We should be getting to Olkarion soon.” I gather up the empty bowls from the others as we collectively rise, and I split off from the others to take the dishes to the wash in the kitchen before rushing to rejoin them. 

When I arrive in the infirmary Lance is still within the pod, but the numbers at the top are gone and instead replaced with _‘Imminent’_. The others are collected at the base of the pod, looking up at him expectantly. 

“-A few more seconds!” Pidge says, smacking Keith’s hands away from the pod’s doorway. 

“What’s a few seconds gonna do?” Keith grumbles with a shot glare in her direction, frowning in displeasure. 

Hunk narrows his eyes distrustfully at Keith, “ _Crow_ , are you one of those people who take food out of the microwave a few seconds before it’s finished?”

Keith crosses his arms and meets his gaze with a pent, frustrated breath, “Only when it’s already _done._ ” 

“How would you know?” Hunk rests his hands on his hips as he continues to fix Keith with narrowed eyes, “Do you know better than the packaging?” Despite the antagonistic gazes of the pair the atmosphere and energy passing between them is playful and light, it brings a genuine smile to my face. 

_Wow._

_I missed these chucklefucks._

Before they can continue to argue the healing pod lets out a burst of air, the glass doors rise and Lance slowly opens his eyes from within. He takes a drowsy step forward as he rubs his eyes, yawning with a slur of his words, “Whoa, what time is it?” 

 _“Hey man!”_ Hunk immediately steps up with a joyful grin, grabbing Lance by his shoulders and suddenly lifts him in the air with a tight hug, “I’m so happy to see you! We’re never splitting up again!”

“ _Herrk! Hunk! Crushing me!”_ Lance wheezes. 

Hunk quickly puts him down, gasping with his large hands suddenly hovering over his mouth, “Oh my crow, sorry! Are you okay? I didn’t accidentally break you did I?”

I try not to smirk too broadly as I raise a coy eyebrow at Hunk, “I told you you had to be more careful hugging people now, big guy.” 

“What? Why?” Lance rubs his eyes, the longer he stands the more he seems to be gaining coherency. 

Hunk gasps suddenly, his eyes starry as he hops from foot to foot, “Oh oh oh! Oh my crow, Lance, you’re not gonna believe this, but my lion’s thing? It gives me _super strength!_ ” 

Lance blinks stupidly at him for a solid beat before he lets out a groan, “Aww, _man!_ That’s so cool, what the heck? Now I really want a rock to do cool junk like that!” He glances over at Pidge and then at me, pointing an accusing finger, “Where were you with your little magic rock? I needed that healing power!” 

“It doesn’t work across long distances.” I turn towards Keith as he speaks with a carefully constructed mask, his arms crossed over his chest. Now that I’m looking at him I can’t tell if he’s wearing my stone or not because of that _stupid_ jacket’s popped collar. _God, that’s atrocious. I’m never gonna get over how ugly that thing is._

“Well I still could’ve needed it when we got back!” He huffs, crossing his arms indignantly with a curl of his nose, “Do you know how much it sucked to fly my lion with a broken arm?! _Do you?!_ ” 

“I don’t even wanna hear it.” I joke with a wry grin, poking him in the ribs with my elbow, “But hey, congratulations, you’ve been in the pod almost as often as I have.” 

“Oh, I’ve got a running tally.” Pidge raises her fingers as she looks to the side to recall her memory, “Shiro’s been in twice, Will three times, Keith once, Lance’s now up to two.” She looks over at Hunk with a relieved grin, “Good thing we’re so careful, huh?”

“Wow, don’t jinx it, dude.” I tease with a broad grin. 

The Castle’s com system suddenly engages, and Allura’s voice rings across the Castle, “Paladins, we’re breaking Olkarion’s atmosphere. We shall be landing in a few doboshes.” 

“Oh quiznak.” Lance swears, suddenly turning to us with a snap of finger guns, “I’ve gotta get out of my suit first, I’ll meet you guys in the hanger bay.” He hurries out of the infirmary with a pep in his step, leaving us behind relatively quickly. 

“Alright, team, let’s head down to the surface projector.” Shiro’s voice draws our attentions back to the task at hand and together we make our way down to the hangers. Walking in a group like this down the tall hallways of the Castle fills me with relief, the sound of our collective boots on the smoothed floors spreads warmth like liquor through my veins. _I didn’t realize how much I missed these guys. I’m so glad we’re all back together now._

Allura is waiting for us in the hanger bay with the furry worm guy, Slav, at her side, the surface projector has already risen from the floor. When we walk through the door I can hear him speaking to Allura with a stressed tone, his voice warbles with similar pronunciations of vowels and hard hits on the consonants as he talks so it takes me a minute to figure out how to actually listen his words, “-probability of the hover generator failing is 2.73%! I cannot walk onto a _hovering death trap_ ! There are even realities where the projector will go in the _opposite_ direction and crush us against the _ceiling!_ ” 

Now that we’re closer I can see him better, two sets of his little hands are clutched in front of him and twitch nervously, his ears flicker back and forth like the swivel of a satellite dish; he stands just a bit taller than Pidge, he comes to my nose in height just about but he is crouched a bit right now, like a frightened cat. 

Allura looks to be at her wit’s end, her jaw is grit and her eyebrows are in a perpetual furrow as she lets out a hard breath, “Slav, I can _assure you_ that the surface projector is perfectly safe, I’ve never encountered a problem with this one, or any other, in my lifetime. So if you would _please_ .” She gestures with both of her hands through the doorway of the surface projector, letting out a hard breath through her nose like an air compressor. _So I have a feeling this is not the first conversation like this Allura has had with him._

I raise an eyebrow as Slav narrows his owlish eyes at the surface projector, I can hear him murmuring under his breath as he looks over at us and then at the projector. The door behind us opens and Lance comes striding through. “Alright! I have calculated the probability of survival, and it must be _just so_.” Slav whirls on us with a crazed look in his eye as Lance rejoins us and first he grabs Allura’s wrists, pushing her inside the surface projector and situating her in the back right corner before he snatches Pidge, pulling her inside and putting her in the center before he moves on to Hunk, Shiro, Lance, and when he turns to Keith he goes where he demands but with a peeved, perplexed expression. 

When Slav turns to me he starts a little with a soft noise, “Oooh. We’re in _this_ reality. _Interesting._ ” He touches a tiny hand to his chin before he turns to back to the surface projector, tilting his head in re-evaluation. 

Lance groans, lolling his head about before he points to the empty space in the projector, “Can we get a move on? The elevator isn’t gonna hurt you, man!”

“No! It must be _perfect_.” Slav answers with a dark glare in Lance’s direction, or a glare as dark as such a rounded face can make, before he turns towards me with a hum, “Which color are you?”

I blink stupidly for a long moment before I awkwardly mutter, “Uh… I’m the White Paladin…?”

Slav’s eyes widen momentarily before he makes a noise in the back of his throat, “Hmm. Interesting. The probability of Voltron having _six_ pilots is rather slim, only 5%! 3% of realities have seven, 1% have four, but there’s an 80% chance to have five… _Interesting._ ”

Pidge blinks at Slav incredulously, “That’s ridiculous, then who would form Voltron’s chest?”

 _“Can you just put Will wherever you want on the elevator so we can go down already?”_ Keith growls in annoyance, his arms crossed with an impatient lilt in his voice that makes my heart stutter a little harder than I think is normal in the situation. _Hnn why am I such a worthless gay?_

“Right.” Slav’s little hand grabs my wrist and tugs me into the surface projector, situating me by the door as he squeezes in between me and Shiro. Only once this is done does the weird little guy let out a slightly relieved breath and closes his eyes, “Alright. Our chances of survival have increased by half a percent, just _no one move!_ ” Slav shouts with a threatening look at everyone in the room, I stare at him with wide eyes. _Wow, this guy is a nervous wreck. I mean, just listening to him is giving_ **_me_ ** _anxiety._  

Allura, having had enough, shuts the surface projector doors and we begin our descent to Olkarion’s surface. Slav immediately shrieks and leaps onto Shiro’s back, curling the lower half of his weasel like body around his mid torso while his many sets of arms hold onto his shoulders and head. Much to my shock Shiro doesn’t look in the least bit phased, in fact he looks so inconceivably tired that against my consent I snicker, I cover my mouth with my hand and barely disguise it as a cough at the last second. 

When the projector doors open the sunlight streams in from the setting sun in the distance, peering over the crests of far away crimson capped trees, casting the skies in shades of gold and ruby like the treasury of a monarch. Before us is a stretch of olive metal ground, a landing pad, and as we walk out I can see we’re surrounded by a huge collection of Olkari who approach as soon as the doors to the projector are open. Tall buildings, modern and sleek colored like emeralds stand tall against the gilded horizon and for a moment all of my breath is stolen as I stare. 

_Wow. I forgot how beautiful Olkarion is._

“Greetings, Paladins!” 

We turn at the sound of the familiar voice and Allura reacts before the rest of us do, beaming immediately and rushing toward the silver-haired Altean as he approaches with a small squadron of Olkari at his heels, “Coran!” Allura presses her hands against his shoulders and hugs him, her face hidden from us as it’s buried in his shoulder.

“It’s good to see you, Princess.” Coran says with a gentle smile, his gloved hands smooth over the waves of Allura’s starlight hair. 

Behind him Ryner and a few other Olkari I’ve never met before stand to the side as Allura disengages from Coran’s arms, they speak once we’ve collected, “It’s good to see you’ve made it safely.”

“We’re happy to be back, Ryner.” Shiro greets warmly, a smile stretching across his lips as his eyes glow like umber in the golden sunshine, “How goes progress on the teludav?”

Wordlessly Ryner waves a hand to the Olkari to their left, “Treaise will show you.” The Olkari nods respectfully to Ryner before they gesture for us to follow them. We move in step behind them as they guide us through the crowd of Olkari, who part before us with various expressions and moaning noises resounding through the air in excitement, waving and smiling and all in all filling the air with joy, it makes my heart warm. We walk off the massive platform where the Castle landed, which is a large hoverpad near the top of the city, and move to the edge. Down below I can see the city streets zig zagging between the sleek, pencil sharp buildings like a motherboard, and although the height is a bit dizzying I try to swallow past the minute fear and keep my head down to keep up appearances. We take a ramp down the side of the building, rounding slowly down the massive platform raised in the air until we come around the broad side, a massive construction site laid out before us where we stand behind a stiff railing with a small holographic panel resting like a podium in front of it. The site below is a _huge_ circular hole in the ground, surrounded by sheets of sage colored metal that lead into the structure and resting within it is an absolutely _massive_ ring. It could easily fit a hundred Castles inside of it, it has curved, emerald leaves at regular points surrounding it like spokes on a crown pointed downward, I’d estimate that it’s _more_ than big enough to encompass Zarkon’s command vessel.

 _“Holy crow.”_ Hunk whispers in awe, his eyes are as wide as moons as he stares at the massive ring below. 

Coran beams, his arms held behind his back in a militant fashion, “We’ve made great progress in the past few quintants, but some structural pieces still need to be placed. Now, with the scaultrite lenses and the Balmeran crystal, the teludav should be done in just a few quintants.”

 _“Wow.”_ Lance murmurs from beside me, I look over at him to see his jaw slack, “That’s one _giant_ teludav.”

“Nice work, Coran.” Keith’s voice sounds equally awed, his hands resting on the railing as he regards the teludav below. 

“Yeah, good job Coran!” Hunk steps up and puts a hand on his shoulder, holding up a fist as Coran looks at him with wide, clueless eyes, “Fist bump!” Coran blinks at him and slowly connects their fists as Hunk spreads his fingers after the touch with a soft _pew_ , “Now blow it up!”

Coran gasps, looking at Hunk with wide, appalled eyes, “ _Oh, don’t you dare!_ It took forever to build this teludav!” He shakes his head with a disappointed gaze as Hunk looks on with muted silence, “And lets not forget that it is a pivotal piece that we need for our plan to defeat Zarkon!” 

_God, I love the colloquial misunderstandings that come with transladazines._

“Ahah!” Slav’s voice suddenly sounds from the holographic panel in front of us, and when I look down I can see an image pop up of a small part of the teludav far below, showing Slav jumping upon it before sitting down upon the metal. _How the hell did he get down there so fast? Did he throw himself off a cliff and fly down like a fucking sugar glider?_ Coran gasps with absolute horror as Slav produces a rock about twice the size of my fist and begins hitting it against the metal, loud _clanks_ coming over the sound system. Slav looks up at the camera like he can actually see us with an expression of a teacher explaining a complicated concept in class that he thinks is simple, “Trust me, this will increase our chances of survival in this reality by 205%.”

Coran gapes at the screen before he turns back to us with a stunned expression, “Is this guy a little…?”

Our response is immediate; we groan with varying levels of annoyance, Shiro grumbles, _“Yes.”_ Pidge sighs with punched words, _“No doubt.”_ Then followed by Lance face palming, _“Not. A. Fan.”_

Coran whirls back towards the screen with wide eyes before he shouts in desperation, _“STOP HITTING THE TELUDAV!”_

Slav’s eyes widen as his rock suddenly makes a large dent in the side, he makes a strange sound that’s like a mixture of laughing and crying as a sudden billow of smoke rises from the metal, a loud _pop_ is heard. I look out beyond to see the smoke rising in real time from the teludav below, then I hear Slav whimpering over the communicator in the holographic panel, “... Ow.”

“Oh, _unbelievable!_ ” The Olkari’s voice who guided us here pulls me away from the scene before me to look where they stand behind us, their unfamiliar eyes are narrowed as they immediately turn to the few Olkari who followed us and declare, “Come, let’s go assess the damage before any more is caused. You, fetch Ryner.” They say with a jab in the direction of another Olkari in the group before they part ways, rushing down a platform to the left hand side. 

“I’m coming with you!” Coran snaps angrily, rushing off after them as he shouts, “I’m giving that little _jullinap_ a piece of my _tuviner!_ ” 

Allura’s eyes widen as she watches them go before she turns to us with an abashed expression, “I’ll go and make sure that Coran doesn’t strangle Slav.” She makes a soft noise of exasperation before she follows after, albeit at a much slower pace. 

Slowly we turn to one another, and collectively as we shift our attention to stare at the massive structure, in that moment I think we all collectively realize the magnitude of what we’re witnessing. _This is it. This is the thing that’s gonna throw Zarkon across the universe, defenseless and alone, so we can take him out once and for all. This is the thing that’s going to turn the tide and push back the Galra Empire to restore balance to the universe. This is the beginning of an end in sight._

Pidge sits beneath the railing, her hands resting beside her as she stares beyond and after a moment she speaks, “What’s everyone thinking about right now?”

“Zarkon,” “Zarkon,” “Zarkon,” “Calzones.” We turn and look over at Hunk incredulously as he stares fondly at the horizon, however when he feels our gazes he balks and stammers, “I mean-” He pauses before he lets out a breath and throws his hands in the air, “Ah, heck. Yeah, I’m thinking about calzones, okay? I mean, does everything always have to be about Zarkon? He’s a bad guy, we’re trying to defeat him, I get it! I’m hungry.”

I can’t help but smirk a bit and shake my head, “Ah, yeah, Zarkon, what an attention whore.” 

We’re silent for a long while, staring down at the horizon as Keith rumbles in a pensive tone, “... We’ve come a long way.”

“Pfft, yeah.” Lance smirks broadly when he glances over at Keith before he launches a side eye to his right, “Remember when Hunk used to throw up from riding in the elevator?”

Hunk shoots him a glare from beside him with a grumble in complaint before he rests his hands on his hips, his voice too becoming thoughtful, “You guys remember that Arusian? Uh… Klaizap, I think his name was? Cool name.”

I raise an eyebrow, “The king?”

Lance shakes his head, “No no, the guy who ran up the Castle. You guys weren’t there.” He waves a hand dismissively in my direction before he smirks broadly at Keith, “I remember Keith tried to beat him up even though he’s the size of a peanut.”

Keith huffs, turning suddenly red in the face as he shoots a death glare at Lance, _“He was their bravest warrior!”_

I try to contain my laughter with minimal success as Pidge snickers, “Oh, how about the time the food goo machines attacked us in the kitchen?”

Hunk gasps dramatically, “That was _the scariest thing_ that’s happened to me the _entire time_ we’ve been here.”

I can’t help but snort, “Wow, wait, seriously?”

Lance rolls his eyes, “Oh, come on!” 

Hunk holds his hands up in surrender with a doe eyed look of innocence, “What? It’s the truth!”

Lance looks at him incredulously, “ _That’s_ what’s scared you the most? We’ve faced a bunch of sentries, a haunted Castle, giant ro-beasts, a mall security guard-!” I can’t hold it back now, I laugh wildly without restraint; Lance flashes me the victorious grin of a class clown achieving their goal. 

Pidge gasps, “ _Oh!_ And don’t forget that cool cube thing!”

Lance makes a vague gesture in Pidge’s direction as I manage to pull myself back together, “Yeah, and that awful cube thing!” 

We stand with peaceful silence, laughing and grinning at one another. After a time Shiro slowly turns to us with a pensive light in his eyes, his hands clenched into loose fists at his sides, “You realize that once we defeat Zarkon… the universe won’t need Voltron anymore.”

The silence is tangible. It shifts the warmth in my heart to something entirely different as I think about what lies beyond today, to where we’ll stand tomorrow. _Won’t need Voltron anymore? Then… But then where would we go? What would we do?_

Lance’s voice softens, his gaze suddenly turning fiery, “... We could return to Earth.”

Pidge looks down at the teludav where she sits at the railing, her voice is soft and pensive, “I can look for my family.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow as he follows Pidge’s gaze, his eyes like galactic pools are far away as he murmurs, “I guess I could look for mine.”

I move to the railing and rest my hands on the surface, my gaze draws away from the teludav and to the horizon beyond, the golden light of the sun casting shadows of blood across the treetops. _There’s a time after to consider. A place to go when the war is over._

“This is it.” Shiro says in agreement, his gaze full of determined light is glued out to the horizon as he speaks with utmost confidence, “As long as everything goes according to plan, we can’t fail.”

We stand in perfect silence for a long time. 

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.” I murmur, something tight constricting in my throat that I can’t quite explain as I speak in a slow, quiet tone, “We’ve still gotta defeat Zarkon. And I don’t think his Galra occupying the galaxy will go down quietly… but I think you’re right. We’re in the endgame, now.” My voice is forlorn and distant, despite how tightly I’m grasping onto the present moment, something that I don’t think has ever happened in my whole life. 

I look over my shoulder at the others and a soft smile forms across my face as I let out a breath, “Listen y’all… we’ve been through hell and back together. But despite all that I’ve got to say… I don’t regret skipping school to fuck off into the desert that random Monday a month ago.” Lance raises an eyebrow at me with a slight smirk, Hunk’s eyes are warm and friendly, Pidge looks up at me from where she sits at the ledge, Shiro’s expression is attentive and soft and my gaze hitches on Keith longer than I mean for it to, it’s expressionless but present and meeting his gaze makes my pulse stutter out of time. “... If I hadn’t, I never would’ve gotten to meet you guys. I can’t even imagine what life was like before knowing you, and despite all the shit we’ve faced and the shit we will in the future… I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything.” My thoughts stumble like pills onto my lips with no filter, and for once I don’t bother with one. _These are my friends. No, even the title ‘friend’ doesn’t even cut it anymore. We’re tighter than that, we’re_ **_stronger_ ** _than that. We’re a team._

Hunk sniffles, his calf brown eyes suddenly watering as he suddenly rushes forward, “Oh, I’m sensing another _group hug coming on!_ ” Before we can complain, object, or otherwise argue Hunk individually scoops us up into his arms until we’re all pressed together, each of us make various noises of shock and complaint as we’re mushed but being surrounded in the warmth, for me at least, is more than welcome. I melt into it and wrap my arms around Pidge’s shoulders to my right and Lance’s waist to my left and close my eyes, soaking in the proximity. 

_Never would I have dreamed to grow so tight with such a diverse group of strangers. And its my dreams that got me where I am today._

_Never thought I’d say this, but… I’m glad that I had them, those test dreams. They were hard, they were scary and terrifying but it led to this. And I wouldn’t trade this for the world._

_Thanks, Silver._

… 

When Allura, Coran, and Ryner return to us where we are hanging out at the construction site, it’s with less than optimal news. 

“Unfortunately your friend damaged a significant portion of the ring’s structural integrity.” Ryner speaks in a non accusatory tone despite the nature of the words they say, “We’re going to have to redo that segment before we can begin constructing where the teludav will be housed.” 

Coran lets out a peeved noise and crosses his arms, his eyebrows are set and his tone is miffed, “It will delay the launch by another four days, three if we’re lucky.’

Shiro lets out a heavy sigh, pinching his brow as he waves a hand, “I’m sure it must have been for a reason. He’s a bit… eccentric, but he knows what he’s doing. I’ve seen him in action. Plus, the Blade of Marmora have worked with him before, he comes highly recommended.”

Ryner nods, their bifocal gaze falling to their glass momentarily, “Let us hope that your friend is as brilliant as you say he is. He has been detained and would have been evicted if he didn’t have the mental schematics necessary to construct the gravity generator and the teludav. In all honesty… It is quite brilliant, his space folding technology. However, if he seeks to derail construction again I will not hesitate to follow through with procedure. Such is how he has been warned.”

Shiro crosses his arms with a slight pinch in his brow, “Thank you for agreeing to work with him. I can assure you that it won’t happen again.”

“Let’s see that it won’t.” Ryner replies evenly with an enigmatic tone before they turn to Coran, “If I may have your assistance in the blueprinting process?” 

“Absolutely.” Coran nods seriously before he turns back to Allura, “Princess, I think you should come with me. It is _your_ quintessence that will power it.” 

Allura bobs her head, “I’m with you.” 

Shiro steps forward with his hands in his pockets, “If you need any help from us or our lions, all you have to do is ask.”

Ryner turns to us with their hands folded in front of them, after a moment they nod with a polite bow, “Thank you, Paladins. You have done more than enough… Now is where your work ends, and ours begins.” They flicker their bifocal gaze to each of us, their brow is high and their expression is gentle, “I am sure that you are weary, please take the time you need to rest… you’ve earned it. I would also encourage you to explore what the city has to offer, now that it has been repaired and renovated.” They smile gently, the final rays of the setting sun casting their face in shades of chartreuse, “If that were to please you.” 

Pidge almost immediately leaps for joy, “Oh _YES!_ ” She bounces from foot to foot as she looks at Ryner with starry eyes, “Can I see your labs? Oh, and do you have an analyzing submatrix capacity chamber? _OH_ or a-” 

 _“Boring!”_ Lance waves her off with a dismissive raspberry before he smirks wickedly, “I’m so down to see what Olkari night life is like, do you have any parties going on? Clubs maybe?” 

I look at Lance incredulously, “Since when do you have time to club at the Garrison?” 

Lance pouts at me with his arms crossed, “Never! There were only ever rando house parties that you had to know someone outside to go to.” He tilts his head to the side as he huffs, “If only I knew you _before_ we left, then I could’ve gotten into one!” 

A cold shiver runs through me at the thought. _Jesus Christ, I’m glad you didn’t. I doubt you would like me for those few months over the summer when I’d thrown myself into the party scene… I can’t even imagine it, it’s so far fetched._

Ryner’s expression doesn’t change, though their eyes are light with confusion, “... I am sure that you will find what you seek for if you were to look.”

“Heck yeah!” Lance cries with excitement before he loops his arms between Hunk’s and mine with a wicked smirk in our directions, “We’re hitting the town, boys!” Hunk gives me a pleading look from the other side of him and a puppy eyed gaze, a killer combo.

A lump forms in my throat and I quickly disengage, “Yeah, no, sorry, those are uh… not my thing.”

“Aww, come on, man!” Lance pouts at me as Shiro quickly clears his throat, he looks to Ryner with a slightly embarrassed grin, “Thank you, Ryner. Good work on the teludav.”

With a nod and a wave Allura, Coran, and Ryner part, heading down the ramp from hence they came and out of sight. Shiro turns to us with crossed arms and a ridiculously dad-like expression as he examines us each individually, “Alright team, you heard Ryner. We’ve been doing a lot for the last few days and we came out of a tough fight, so go out and have some fun. _But_ don’t go staying out too late. I want to keep up with our training while they’re working on the teludav so we’re waking up bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“Geez, come on, lighten up, Shiro!” Lance proclaims with a huff, punching his arm, “You should come with us, it’ll be fun! Check out the city, check out any cute girls-”

I roll my eyes with a groan, “ _And_ you’ve lost me.”

“- _Or,_ alternatively, we can just look at all the cool stuff they’ve got instead of going to look for parties.” Hunk replies charismatically, grinning at me sheepishly with a pleading look in his eye. 

 _“... Fine.”_ Lance grumbles, waving his hands dismissively before he heads back up the ramp, “Come on, losers, let’s go get ready! I need a shower before I’m going _anywhere_.”

Night as fallen over Olkarion, the last of the sun’s rays cast us in the dusky colors of the starry sky. I follow Hunk and Lance up the stairs with Shiro and Keith walking just ahead, so curiously I pick up pace beside Shiro and fix him with an intrigued look, “So what’re you gonna do, Shiro?”

He glances over at me and pauses, his expression is soft and contemplative before he answers, “Probably gonna turn in for an early night. After a shower.” He smiles a bit, looking up at the Castle as we approach, “Definitely after a shower.” 

“Nights in are the best nights.” I reply with a grin, and for a moment as I look beyond him at Keith, whose gaze is down at the ground before him with a pensive light in his eyes. I consider asking him what he’s up to tonight but find my voice is lacking, a lump remains in my throat as I instead look down at the ground. _Fuck. No, I can’t go being buddy buddy yet when I still need to apologize. And ask for my stone back._

Just as we’re about to head up to the Castle Keith branches off, not joining us in the surface projector. Lance leans out with an eyebrow raise and calls, “Yo Keith, where you going, man?” 

“Out.” Keith replies enigmatically, flashing him a look I don’t quite comprehend as he strides off without a pause and right when the door of the surface projector closes. 

I blink, staring at the closed door for a moment as Lance huffs, “Dang. Alright, then, geez. Broody boy _out_.” Mentally I’m reduced to soup as Lance shakes head a bit after a moment and ropes an arm over my shoulders and Hunk’s beside him, the projector rising back up to the Castle. “Alright, look alive, team. We’re going in fast and hot, taking the city by storm!” When the surface projector opens he releases us, turning about with a joking salute, “I’ll be back in a hop skip and a tuber!” He strides off out of the hanger, gone within the second, not that I’m truly looking, my gaze isn’t on the Castle. Shiro moves to head towards his hanger as Hunk turns to me, I’m looking down at my shoes with a buzz in my thoughts, “Okay, well, it’s just you and me…” He pauses, and I focus my gaze back to see him giving me a curious expression, “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.” He murmurs gently, an eyebrow raised. 

“I…” Inadvertently my attention lands to Shiro’s back as I try to straighten out my thoughts. I think he senses me looking as he turns and meets my gaze with a curious expression. I forget what I was beginning to say, all that my thoughts are jumbled and incoherent, the only thing I can think of is _apology_.

“... I uh… I’ve got something I need to grab from my room.” Hunk pipes up suddenly, when I look at him with a raised eyebrow I see his mocha eyes flickering between Shiro then me before he turns towards the door, “I’ll see you in a minute.” 

“Oh. Okay. See you.” I mutter lamely, as he walks through the door and out of the hanger. 

“... Did you wanna talk about something?” I blink and look up at Shiro to see him standing before me, his gaze is soft and gentle as he has his arms crossed over his chest. _Shit. I’m so far in my head trying to get my thoughts together that I didn’t notice him approach. I feel like cotton candy._

“I…” I bite my lip as my thoughts slowly begin to gather, clearing themselves into formulated sentences. _It’s Keith. I need to talk to Keith… but I don’t know if he wants to talk to me. I need to apologize, I need to get my stone back, but most of all… I don’t know. I need to see him. I’ve kind of… missed him. Since he’s been gone. But I’m dreading the kind of conversation we may have if I go to seek him out. What I’ll say to him and what he’ll say back._

“... You should go after him.” Shiro murmurs, snapping my gaze back onto him so quickly I almost get whiplash. I blink at him incomprehensibly as he chuckles, “You kept looking at Keith on our way here. You guys should really talk.” 

I purse my lips and huff indignantly, “Well, we have talked, I said hi, didn’t I?” Shiro gives me a genuinely tired and _bitch what do I look like_ expression that’s so stark that I immediately retract, raising my hands in surrender, “Okay, okay. I just…” I close my eyes, my eyebrows furrow as I struggle to verbalize how I feel, “Last time I talked to him I did something I regret. I know I need to apologize, I _want_ to apologize, but… I don’t know if he wants to talk to me at all.” I let out a deep and weary sigh, gesturing vaguely to the side with limp arms, “Hell, he probably hates me now-”

“Oh for the love of-” I blink in shock as Shiro suddenly pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a hard breath before he reaches out to me and grabs my shoulders with a serious look into my eyes, “Will, listen. I know you and Keith well enough by now that I can say this with confidence: _Go. Talk. To. Him._ ” 

I stare at Shiro for a long moment as I bite my lip apprehensively, “But I don’t know what to say! Or what he’ll say back, or…” I pause, looking down at my hands as I let out a soft sigh, my voice dropping to a whisper, “I’m scared I’m gonna fuck this up more than I already have. I don’t wanna accidentally hurt him again.” 

I can feel Shiro’s gaze on me so slowly I lift my head to meet them, they’re stormy and open like the sky right right when lightning strikes. He closes his eyes after a moment and when he opens them again he lets out a forlorn sigh, “I know how you feel. Believe me.” He lays a hand on my shoulder and rubs his thumb along the surface of my shirt affectionately, his expression is serious and gentle, “But sometimes you’ve gotta take the risk. You’re kindhearted, Will, and Keith knows that, too. He isn’t gonna shut you down as hard as you think he’s going to if you’re going to apologize to him, for whatever it is you did.” He smirks a bit as he lets his arm drop, “If it’s anything like the last time you ‘messed up’,” Shiro puts these in air quotes as he continues, “Then I’m sure you two will be fine.” 

I shoot Shiro a hard glare as a burning blush rises in my cheeks, and after a long moment I sigh, throwing my arms in the air, “Whatever. Not like I can do anything about it now, he’s probably long gone.” 

Shiro looks off to the side, his expression is lost in deep thought before he answers, “He’s probably not as far as you think he is.” He claps a hand on my shoulder, I blink stupidly as he grants me a roguish smile, “I’ll cover for you with Lance and Hunk. Go get him.” 

I flush a dark red, grumbling, “You’re killing me, Shiro.” 

“That’s what I’m here for. Now _go_.” He states again with more insistence, tilting his chin towards the surface projector. I shoot him a dark, narrow eyed look, before I can talk myself out of it I take a steeled breath and turn as he advises, taking the surface projector back down to Olkarion. 

When the door opens and I step out I’m brushed with a gentle, cool breeze, one that smells like autumn and makes my skin break out in delighted goosebumps. I’m filled with immediate, gentle joy that fills my being to the point that I just close my eyes and savor the feeling of fresh air on my skin. When I open them again I examine the night that has fully fallen, now the lights of the city illuminate the night in shades of lime and chartreuse, casting the Castle in a gentle glow like it’s a large white beacon atop the city. I let out a breath and furrow my eyebrows, looking around me idly as I think. 

 _Alright. If I were a broody bitch like Keith, where would I go?_ I chew on my lip as my thoughts steam, scanning the skyline. _Last time he was here he said he likes the quiet of it. At the party, he drug me up to the top of the platform, he had already found it and knew it was there. So maybe he’ll do the same, maybe he’ll find someplace tall to look out at the city…_ I look around me with fresh eyes and see the building next to the Castle stands tall just above it, narrowing at a peak like a medieval tower against the darkness of the sky, I can just barely see a jutting area around the top cone to signify a balcony. _Bingo. A balcony at the very top of the building. A view of the city in the middle of the night._ I look down at the building and see that all lights within are off save for the power strips in the side. _And vacant for the evening._

_Fuck it, it’s worth a shot._

_Shit, what am I even doing?_

I walk to the edge of the landing zone the Castle is perched upon and see a pathway leading to the inside of the building, so I stride inside with renewed purpose, so focused on the task at hand that I forget to think, or rather I keep myself occupied enough to _not_ think. Inside it’s dark, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust before I find myself standing in some sort of foyeur with decorative fountains on either side of the walls, a duel stairwell winding around them. I take the stairs two at a time until I get to the top, before me is a large stretch full of abandoned, hovering platforms, they look a bit like desks covered in holographic panels. On the far side of the room is a small doorway with a smaller stairwell beyond it and a bar across the middle. A sign rests upon it with a phrase carved in Olkari, or at least I think it’s probably Olkari. _Someplace high up_ **_and_ ** _off limits. Screaming some Keith attracted vibes._ Thinking I’ve found the right place I duck beneath the bar and follow the stairs up, my hands brushing the smoothed green walls as I go. 

The spiral staircase is tall, fully encompassing a tower that’s constructed for these stairs. It just keeps going up and up, I almost wear myself out ascending them but fortunately it’s not a boring walk, as one side of the tower I find myself in is entirely glass, rewarding me with a better and better view as I ascend to the roof. As I go my thoughts start to catch up to me, and immediately I start to overthink like my life depends on it. 

 _This is a stupid idea. He’s run off for a reason, he probably doesn’t want to be disturbed, least of all by me. I know Shiro said to take the risk but I don’t know if this will benefit anything besides maybe try to put a patch over what can best be described as the rocky path of our relationship. A loaded word, but it’s true, people you know you have relationships with, like I have a relationship with Lance, Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, Allura. So it’s not like a_ **_relationship_ ** _, right? God, I sound stupid._

 _All of this doesn’t matter. I have to apologize. What I did, shutting him down and telling him off for trying to talk to me about what happened at the Blade of Marmora’s base wasn’t right. He hardly initiates just about anything, last time he did I think was Olkarion, but the last_ **_conversation_ ** _he initiated was like… After Zarkon. After I’d almost died, apparently. Still not gonna talk about that._

_I’m nervous about what’s gonna happen, I admit it. I know this should be simple, ‘hey, sorry for being a dick’ one and done, boom, moving on, but it isn’t that simple. It’s never this simple with Keith, it hasn’t been since I dreamt about kissing him for the first time._

_I just have to do it, put my head down and bulldoze through it. Like Shiro said… It’s time to take a risk. Fuck, why am I so nervous? I shouldn’t be as nervous as I am. Fuck, he’s probably isn’t even here anyway, the city is huge, he could’ve gone anywhere, I’m probably just getting all worked up for nothing…_

Finally the end is in sight, I can see the doorway at the top of the stairs so I find myself refreshed with adrenaline, from anxiety mostly, as I make my way up and at the top of the stairs I touch the doorway, it slides open silently. 

The balcony isn’t large but it is long, it curves around the top of the main spire of the building like the top of the torch in the Statue of Liberty or the Tower of Isholdhe, with only the ground and the railing to identify the space. Below the Olkari city spills out before me like I’m standing on a cliff facing the ocean, at night the olive and grass green lights illuminate the sides of the buildings like fireflies dancing and flickering in the night, and above is the starry sky. It’s nothing like I could ever see on Earth on clearest night, the stars outnumber the drops of blood in my body, I can see traces of constellations and splashes of black across the back like a massive, magnificent painting, somehow the light of the city doesn’t contradict the light of the stars but rather contrasts with it, holds them together in a balance. From where I enter the balcony is empty but continues around a rounded corner about the top of the tower so I walk forward quietly, trailing my fingertips along the metal railing and that’s when I spot him.

Keith’s on the far side of the balcony, furthest from the line of sight from the doorway with a forearm resting on the railing, his gaze flickers between his hand before him to the horizon where the city and sky meet one another in a soft matrimony of light. His other hand is on his chest, he’s messing with something there but I can’t tell what it could be at this angle. His bangs fall in his eyes like the feathers of a raven, he almost blends into the night if it weren’t for the pale expanse of his throat and the whites of his jacket, illuminated by the glow of the city below. _Wow. He’s… Wow. Fuck. He’s beautiful._

It takes me a solid minute just to stare in _awe_ for a moment before I’m able to collect myself enough to approach him. _You got this, Will. You got this._

“Thought I’d find you up here.” Keith starts rather hard at the sound of my voice and straightens, a hand still grasping the railing as he whips in my direction but he stalls when he sees it’s me, his hand on his chest shifting before dropping to his side, like he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. I walk forward and shift to lean my elbows on the railing next to him, facing the spire with my back to the city lights as I regard his expression with a slight smirk, “You know this area’s closed off, right?” 

Keith seems to have recovered from my sudden entrance, as he slowly returns to the position he was in before I disturbed him, facing outwards, looking up at the night sky. “Yeah, well… It’s got the best view around here. I wanted to check it out.” His voice is deep and husky and my immediate reaction is _fuck that’s hot_. 

I smirk a bit and look up the spire of the tall building, “Or were you just trying to escape Lance before he could rope you into trying to find an Olkari club?”

“Pfft, he could try.” Keith smirks the slightest bit, it sends a shiver down my spine as he laces his fingers together, fingers clad in fingerless gloves. 

I laugh, my gaze flickering back down to the pine colored wall ahead of me, “Yeah, I can’t say I was stoked either. Luckily Shiro said he’d cover my escape.” Keith chuckles softly in response and it makes a hot flash shoot up my face. 

“How’d you find me, anyway?” Keith asks after a brief pause, I can feel his gaze on the side of my face but after risking so many glances in his direction I’m worried any more will weaken my resolve. 

“Honestly? Intuition.” I answer, tilting my head to the side as I regard a particularly interesting part of the tower’s spire, “You said you liked the quiet when we were here last. And-” I halt when I realize I’m about to bring up the party, my tongue ties itself in knots so instead I flounder slightly in search for something else to say, “-and you don’t seem like the type to go try and find Olkari clubs. So I figured… Up.” 

“Up.” Keith echoes but otherwise doesn’t reply. It’s silent for a long moment and I can feel Keith glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, probably wondering what the fuck I’m _really_ doing here, and my mind goes into overdrive. _This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to him since the Blade of Marmora’s base. I shut him down before, but that was wrong of me, now I have a chance to try and make it right. Okay, don’t panic now, you can do this. Don’t gay panic now. You can do this. I’m Will fucking Lancaster, no boy can hold sway over me._

_… Except maybe this boy._

“Hey, um…” My eyes flicker in Keith’s direction and I pause when I meet his gaze; they’re almost black in the darkness of the night sky and they make my heart stutter in my chest. Once I’m able to collect myself I clear my throat and start over, my eyes shifting onto my shoes so I can think again, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” 

“Yeah?” 

I chew on the inside of my cheek, thinking carefully about what I’m going to say before I say it, “I’m sorry about how I treated you after we left the Blade of Marmora’s base.” I furrow my eyebrows as fresh embarrassment and shame flushes across my face, I let out a hard sigh, “And for cutting you off when you tried to talk to me about it. And for jumping on Allura when it wasn’t my battle to fight, when I’m the _last person_ who should have said anything.” 

Keith doesn’t answer and although I’m tempted to look at him to gauge some sort of reaction I manage to resist, instead forcing my eyes shut as if I can block out the internal frustration curdling in the back of my throat, “I… It was so, _so_ stupid. I thought that learning something so integral about you for the first time meant that I didn’t really know you as well as I thought I did, it made me question what about you I actually knew and what I’d just made up in my head and associated with you. But that just isn’t true.” I chew on my lip as my eyes open, risking a glance in Keith’s direction as I speak again in a soft register, my hands grasping the railing behind me, “Lance got me thinking about it, what he said that morning before we all split up. He said that you’re still the same person, that nothing about you that we’ve grown to know has changed just because we learned you’re Galra.” Keith’s eyes are wide in surprise, I can see shades of blues and violets in the hues that swirl like nebula and for a moment I almost allow myself to get lost in them, they’re so heavy and gravitating I wouldn’t surprised I would be pulled to him even in zero G. I clear my throat and look away again quickly as I spit out the words before the dwindling courage I’d accrued is lost, “I’m sorry that it took me so long to tell you this. I should have before you left… I regret that. It’s been eating away at me ever since.” 

Keith shifts a bit until he’s leaning his hip on the railing, facing me more fully. I glance over at him with a raised eyebrow when he speaks in a voice that’s so soft and vulnerable it sends a sharp arrow through my chest, “I thought you hated me.” 

I blink stupidly for a solid minute before I too face him fully with an incredulous expression, _“What?”_  

“Yeah.” Keith mutters, his gaze flickers across my features and then down at the floor as he continues in that same, soft, raw, slightly confused tone, “Because I’m Galra.” 

“I- what the- no, I- _no._ ” I stammer, shaking my head violently. _What the fuck? Back at this again, thinking I’m hating_ **_him_ ** _when he should be hating_ **_me_ ** _, this really is just like the last time we were on Olkarion-_ I reach out and grab his arm without thought and with a serious expression, “No, Keith, I could never hate you. You being Galra doesn’t change who you are, and I like who you are.” Keith’s gaze rises to meet mine and for a minute my throat closes completely and I forget how to breathe. My hand becomes sentient, like it has a mind of its own it travels from his arm to his cheek without any thought and somehow some deep part of me that I didn’t know I had manages to keep some semblance of function as I murmur, “Galra, human, whatever. What’s in your blood doesn’t matter to me because you’re Keith. And I like Keith just the way he is.” 

For a moment the air is still, for a longer moment I consider it, and for an even longer moment I stand there staring at his open expression, his beautiful eyes like galaxies in the light of the stars. I’m so _so_ close to leaning in and kissing him, almost two heartbeats away until a nagging fear tugs me back at the last second, a fear I can’t describe but one that tastes like green apples, my heart leaps into my throat and I find my hands pulling away from him. Instead I shift to lean my forearms on the balcony to look out over the city, to look at someplace other than him to attempt to wrangle in some self control; Keith doesn’t move even a single muscle, he barely seems to even breathe from where I left him, not that I’m looking, not that I’m looking, not that I’m looking. _Okay. That was really gay. That was a really gay moment we just shared. I need to avert this before he gets uncomfortable, even more uncomfortable than he probably already is, fuck damnit, why can’t I make things platonic for two_ **_fucking_ ** _seconds?_

“Damn,” I laugh a little, mostly at myself, struggling to find something else, _anything else_ to draw attention away from the pounding of blood in my ears. So I mumble awkwardly in a jesting tone as I wring my fingers over the railing, “Another heart to heart, just like last time we were here, huh?” 

As soon as the words slip out I regret them, internally I beat myself bloody. _That’s the last thing I should be bringing up after having the gayest moment of the week. What the fuck Will. What the fuck, that was a terrible decision, I need to say something else, something that isn’t-_

Keith hovers next to me without movement, when he speaks in a voice I don’t recognize my thoughts short circuit, “Yeah. And you’re pulling away just like last time, too.” 

_Oh._

_Oh no._

My heart seizes violently in my chest as I blink, I look up at him with a confused expression as I simultaneously try to figure out what I just heard and find a way to vocalize it, “... Wait… does… you remember…?”

Keith’s arms are crossed over his chest and there’s a hard, lack of light in his eyes as he meets my gaze, “Yeah I remember, why wouldn’t I?” 

Mentally reeling I straighten, my thoughts jumble together like soup as I stammer, “I… You… You were drunk, you were stumbling on the way back from the party and then… I thought… And you didn’t act any different the next day so I just assumed you didn’t…”

Keith shakes his head, his jaw is set and a soft olive in the gentle green lights of the city below, “You didn’t act any different, either.” 

I snap back quickly, “That’s because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, in case you regretted what you-” I swallow the last of my words, looking down at my hand resting on the railing as my heart stammers so violently in my chest that I swear my cardiac system’s about to give out. _Whoa. Back off, Will. Maybe he’s thinking about something else._ “... So what is it you remember?” I venture with a cautious gaze locked on Keith’s hard expression.

“All of it.” 

My breath stills as Keith suddenly huffs in frustration, his hands clench into fists and he perches one on the railing next to him, “Damnit, Will, what’s going _on_ here? We keep like… _dancing around_ this _thing_ we have and I just don’t understand why you keep… _doing_ that.” I look up at him with wide eyes as he waves a hand at me as if case in point with an accusatory set in his brow, I blink at him stupidly as he growls with a hint of rawness in his husky voice, “I fucking… _Rgh_ , Will, I didn’t think I’d have to say this to get you to understand, but here it is: _I_ _like you, too_.” Everything inside me, my blood, my heartbeat, my thoughts, my breathing, they silence themselves. The only thing I can see, hear, or focus on is Keith’s raw, frustrated expression, the dark light in his eyes, and the growl of his words, “- And I don’t understand why you keeping pulling away when things get too close, I just- I just don’t get it. What’re you so scared of?”

I don’t remember how to breathe as I look at Keith’s expression, upset and frustrated and annoyed and my immediate reaction is to wipe those fears away _but how can I when I’m already so bogged down in my own?_

_What’re you so scared of?_

“A lot.” I murmur, swallowing thick on the pressure in my throat as I take a steadying breath. _Be careful here._ “Keith… you’ve got to know that I’ve rarely found someone that I’ve… Someone I’ve felt as strongly about as I feel about you. I don’t let myself get close to others to let that happen ‘cause it’s for a _reason_ , Keith, I push people away because I’ve all these…” I grit my teeth as I move my hand to the side with words tripping on my tongue, I can see my hands are beginning to shake, _memories, scars, poisons, diseases, marks, disgusting tar that sticks to me like a cloud of sickness,_ “All this _pain_. I have _so much hurt_ inside me from a bunch of shit things that I’ve done to others that refract back on me because of how I feel, and how I feel for you is so much _stronger_ than anything else I’ve felt- and I _still_ like you, so _so_ much, it’s frankly a miracle because of how hard I tried to stop it, shove it down and try and push you away because I’m _terrified_ of what it means I might do to you, but it’s _hard_ because you’re… you.” Something salty clings to the back of my mouth as Keith meets my gaze evenly, I feel that I’m shaking like a leaf caught in a screen door during a hurricane but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about that right now. I’m just trying to keep this blackness inside me from spilling out and drowning Keith but his eyebrows are furrowed in disbelief, he doesn’t understand, he looks about two seconds away from arguing with me. 

 _Fine. I’ll tell him. I’ll make him understand why we can’t do this, what could happen to him if I get too close- but I will never talk about_ **_him_ ** _. But I can talk about someone else, someone who can still get the point across,_ “There was this guy back on Earth… Jax.” I start, the only thing that I can try to control is the tone and tremor of my voice, I start rattling off the hook like a broken dam from a flood I’d caused, “He… We started doing stuff but I pressed him faster than he was ready for and - sorry, that’s too vague - he wanted sex but he didn’t realize he didn’t want it with _me_ until after it had already happened and he didn’t tell me until I asked, if I’d just been _better_ about looking for signs that I wasn’t wanted, that I wasn’t what _he needed_ , I could’ve avoided hurting him like I did.” My voice is shaking, I wish it wouldn’t but it does, it’s hard and guttural as I bite my right hand’s fingertips into the palm, into the scar to ground myself and pull my head away from the ice encroaching on my lungs as the other holds the railing so tightly that if I had Hunk’s super strength I’m positive the metal would give. “Ever since I can’t look him in the eye without feeling like I’m getting stabbed because of how much it hurts me to know that I _pushed_ and he _fell_.”

Keith lets out a hard breath and frowns at me as he shifts closer, he touches my hand where it grips the railing so tight my knuckles are white as he growls with a note of frustration and something else, something I can’t identify nor understand, “That doesn’t sound like you hurt anyone, that sounds like someone hurt you.”

I grit my teeth and swallow on the hard lump in my throat and although my head is telling me to pull my hand away from his my body doesn’t listen, just the simplicity of his hand on my curled fist around the railing gives me such minute, gentle comfort it’s hard to pull away. I huff dismissively, “No, it’s just karma.” 

Keith’s hand tightens on my hold of the railing, like he’s trying to get my attention and finally I return to my senses to push away the selfishness and pull my arms to my chest, I feel like I’m covered in chicken pox and I’m shaking even more just at the thought of spreading it to Keith, “Even disregarding that it’s not _just him_ , Keith. When I care about someone, when I get close to people I _twist_ them.” I bare my teeth, closing my eyes tightly so I don’t have to see his, I know if I look into them I’ll lose my resolve to show him, _to make him see who I really am_ , “I don’t know how, but it always happens some way or another. They start off fine, they’re perfect, wonderful people but then I get to them and they change, by inches. Suddenly I turn around and I don’t even recognize them anymore and it’s always because _I_ did something, _I_ hurt them and then it blows back on me.” I hear Keith take a step towards me and I mirror it in the opposite direction, the salt on my tongue is threatening to gush forth with my words like the torrent of water from a broken shower head, my voice starts to shake and it grows more and more out of control, _why can’t I control it-_ “It _should_ lash back on me, it should because I-I _spread_ this fucking _disease_ , I’m a _plague_ and it gets all wrong and I-I just don’t wanna hurt anyone, I don’t wanna hurt _you_ -”

Before I can get another word out Keith reaches forward and his hand covers my mouth with a surprising amount of gentleness that it not only silences the flow of words but the progression of thoughts racing through my head, they grind to a halt, slam on the brakes. I open my eyes slowly to look down at his hands, those _fingerless gloves_ , then at his face and my chest begins to ache, ache and ache and ache, and I haven’t the faintest clue why. It’s like the cracks in my ribcage have been laid bare to the elements and they’re experiencing rain for the first time. 

His violet gaze is hard but gentle, focused but sanded down as he speaks in a soft voice that I can barely hear, “Will, you’re not going to hurt me.” Keith’s hand laxes and when I open my mouth to argue his fingertips stay on my lips, effectively cutting off any line of thought I may have had. He peers at me with dead seriousness hanging within the indigo rings of his eyes, he can’t be more than a few inches away as he continues in a soft murmur, “Listen… when I met you, I thought you had to have lived under a rock your whole life to be the way you are because you’re so… _idealistic_ . I thought that you were naive and never experienced the real world before to think that there’s _good_ to be found anywhere, you see it _everywhere_ and I thought that you had to be just… fucking stupid or something. But you proved that I was wrong. Somehow you’re still that same Will even after all that’s happened to the team. To _you_ .” Keith’s gaze flickers downward and I feel his other hand touch my hip and momentarily I flinch in surprise. His fingertips skim on the thumb sized scar hidden beneath the fabric of my shirt but I can’t peel my eyes away from his gaze, I’m so utterly enraptured that the only colors that the world has are violets and grays and deep, dark blues. Keith speaks softly in a tone I’ve never heard before, his gaze firmly latching back onto mine, “Now, hearing all this… the fact that all that shit’s happened to you and you’re still so fucking _kind_ to people- you still _care_ and _wonder_ at the littlest of things like the world’s never done you wrong, you’re just…” Keith furrows his eyebrows, I can see frustration growing in his gaze as he stops on words and tries to rephrase his thoughts as he continues, “You would give anything to protect the others, even before you _knew_ them, that’s just insane to me, and you… you’ve almost _died_ for me.” Keith’s voice hitches and my heart hiccups in my chest as the hand on my mouth alleviates all pressure and his fingertips drag downward, one lingers on my bottom lip and it burns like a brand as his gaze flickers to it, “I don’t care what you said, what you think you did, or what’s happened to you in the past.” Keith lets out a breath, a soft noise rises from the back of my throat as his hand cups my cheek with his thumb remaining on my lips, “You’re the first person who’s looked and dug into me and said that you like what you found. You once called me impulsive but you didn’t say it was a bad thing like other people do, you said that it’s something you _admired_ about me and that’s just…” Keith stammers a bit, his eyebrows furrow as he lets out a hard breath through his flared nose, “I’m not afraid that you’ll hurt me anymore because you seem so invulnerable to it all, that nothing could happen to you to make you change and that’s… I don’t know, grounding? _Fuck_ , I don’t know, I just… You shouldn’t be so scared about this. No, not… I mean… Will, I don’t want you to be afraid. I don’t want you to be scared of me.” 

Something inside me snaps. I have no idea what it is, but some tension in my throat is suddenly gone, lost in the winds of the radio silence in my head as I stare at his expression. Rarely am I speechless, now is such a time, but beyond the silence on my togue I don’t hear anything in my own head, all I can hear is the sounds of the city and Keith’s breathing. “Why have you never told me this before?” I ask in a soft voice, for once I allow it to be open and vulnerable as I reach up and touch his wrist that cups my cheek, sliding a bit beneath the cuff of his jacket I can feel the heat of his skin. 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow in thought, his other hands rests on my neck and I can feel his fingertips touching the fringes of my hair idly. After a few beats of silence he sighs, “I don’t know. I guess… Before I thought you didn’t actually like me. After that time we kissed in your room and you pulled away and started saying all that stuff I thought you were just making up excuses because you realized you didn’t want anything to do with me.” I swallow on the dryness in my mouth as my hands brace on both of his wrists, grazing down his forearms as I watch his expression with rapt attention, his gaze flickers and moves sporadically all over the place, never landing on one thing for too long as he continues to rumble in a low tone, “I always knew you were scared of something about me. I couldn’t figure out what it was that drove you away so I just… resigned to it, I guess.” Keith huffs, cascading breath across my face as his fingertips curling through my hair tighten slightly, holding on as he mutters, “I’m telling you now because you said you do that on purpose to ‘protect people’. Like you _always do_.” Keith tags on at the end with a slightly sarcastic tone, a crooked half smirk emerging from his lips as he murmurs, “And that just kinda sounds like your way of saying that you’re feeling the same thing I am, I guess. Or at least I think so.” I start when Keith suddenly lets out an annoyed huff, his hand touching my face instead settles on my collar, his eyebrows are set in frustration as his gaze glares at my chest like the front of my shirt personally wronged him with a growling sigh, “... This isn’t coming out right. I’m not any good with words.”

The fear lingering in my throat has receded to the pit of my stomach, and despite how it remains cold like an icecube a different feeling - compassion, warmth, something sunny and pleasant - rises in my chest and takes its place, my thoughts roll onto my tongue before I can think the better of them, “... So don’t speak.” 

Keith’s gaze shoots up to mine and I meet his and for a moment the world stills; my thoughts, my heart, the very blood pounding in my ears. Keith’s eyes flicker across my features and after a moment I can see them land on my lips, he whispers in a voice barely heard, “Don’t pull away.” 

This time when I look into the galaxies of his eyes lying before me I don’t stop myself from falling in. I whisper so softly I almost don’t hear myself, “I won’t.” 

Our lips meet somewhere in the middle and my heart sings, his lips move against mine softly and slowly and it makes my thoughts spiral into nothingness as his hands linger on my collarbone. I let out a sigh against his lips, it feels like finally scratching an itch that’s long permeated and lingered and it eases the ache in my chest, it’s like I’m an empty pot and he’s the warmth of coffee that I’ve lacked for so long. His hands wind themselves into the collar of my shirt, I can feel the leather of his gloves touching the skin under my collarbone and suddenly I’m desperate for more of his touches, I’m fucking _starving_ for more of _him_. 

I suck gently on his bottom lip to enrapture him and something changes in the air; Keith’s hands grab onto the collar of my shirt and tug me towards him a little harder, the spice of his tongue against my teeth makes me dizzy and the space between us suddenly grows more real, hungrier. My hands immediately find themselves under his jacket and grasping the sides of his black shirt, Keith’s breath stutters as his hands release my collar and instead thread through my hair, cradling my head as his lips move against mine. It’s like the lingering moments, the ache, the mutual want, and things left unsaid until now come to a crux and now we’re making up for it with white knuckled touches and suddenly scorching kisses; I don’t even remember where we are, why we’re here, or what _planet_ we’re even on, all I care about is Keith’s body under my hands and the taste of cinnamon on my lips. _I’m not afraid of you. I was never afraid_ **_of_ ** _you. I’ll show you I’m not afraid of you._  

I take a step closer and pin Keith against the railing of the balcony, he gasps as I suck on his bottom lip again and the sound sends my soul straight to heaven, my hands glide from the waistband of his pants up his ribcage and that’s when I feel his belt just above the soft material of his shirt, the one that’s just barely too large for him, the one he always wears. Curiously I press closer and slide my hands to his lower back, Keith lets out a shaky breath and a moment of fear snatches my attention, I pull away from him slightly to look at him my breath is _stolen_ at how beautiful he looks. His bangs hang like the shadow of crow’s wings in his indigo eyes that shine like the night sky, he’s so fucking _stunning_ that my head spins; but, most importantly, he doesn’t look put off, surprised or otherwise… he looks content. When he opens his eyes I see them hone in on my lips with a spark of desperation and I immediately shiver. 

I trail my fingertips along the length of Keith’s knife, hidden in the back just beneath his jacket, and with a wicked smirk I cock an eyebrow at him, “Is that your blade, or are you just happy to see me?”

Keith growls with a playful spark in his eyes as he surges forward and his lips return to mine, scorching and hot and rough and my heart rate _spikes_ . I grab the front of his jacket and hold him against me as his hands push through my hair and down my neck, I feel his fingertips trailing from my jaw to the base of my throat as he bites on my lips and _I’m beyond gone._

 _“Keith,”_ I whisper breathlessly between burning kisses, his breath stutters out of time as his hands move to the front of my shirt and I feel his fingertips reach lower, tugging the texture down with them as they practically rake downwards until they push underneath, his fingertips grace bare skin and desperately I drag my hands up his chest, brushing the skin of his throat before threading my fingers through his hair and holding on tightly, I’m so _desperate_ to touch him it’s ridiculous, I’m so caught up in the cinnamon on my tongue and his hands pushing the front of my shirt up my chest that I forget to breathe, but who the _fuck_ needs to breathe anyway. I bite on his bottom lip again a little harder than I mean to and Keith lets out a soft, breathless sound, something I wouldn’t have caught if I didn’t swallow it between my lips and its presence sets my blood on fire. I trail my fingertips down from his hair to his jawline and I can feel his pulse alongside my palm, racing and pounding against my skin, it makes my breath stutter out of time and suddenly an idea forms. Before I can think about it I pull away slightly, just barely, our lips are still brushing and breathless as hell I whisper against his lips, opening my eyes to examine his face, “Can I kiss you here?” I brush my fingertips along the side of his neck, between his jawline and his shoulder.

Keith’s eyes lock on mine and it nearly gives me a system failure, they’re dark, shrouded in a manner that I’ve never seen before but it’s so daring and fiery that a shiver races down my spine. Wordlessly Keith’s kiss-red lips pull back into a smirk and his hand traverses from my chest to my hair, with a gentle pull downward he guides me to his throat. I seize the opportunity immediately and latch my lips onto his skin, his adam’s apple bobs with a heavier breath beneath my tongue, I grab his hips and hold him close. I feel his hands move to my shoulders, my arms, dragging his fingertips along my skin and leaving molten want in his wake, I trail gentle kisses across the expanse of his throat until I press my tongue against his pulse and suck. It’s gentle, I don’t want to accidentally bruise him but it’s _so hard_ to control myself or maintain any sense of existence as one of Keith’s hands winds into my hair and the other digs into the skin above my shoulderblade with a wanting hum. I eye the sweet space beneath his jawline where his pulse lies and now that I’ve tasted it, tasted _him_ , I want _more_. 

I pause briefly and touch my lips to his, he pursues for a firmer, real kiss but I retreat just a bit to hold his attention as I murmur, “Can I leave marks on you?” 

Keith’s eyes are glazed over, his lips are parted and he’s panting slightly in such a delicious manner I can’t wait to close the distance and suck more of the breath out of him. After a moment of staring he growls, “You better.” His breath is shaky and his simple words strike me like lightning and with the permission I close the distance and kiss him rough and hot, I can’t get enough of the cinnamon on my tongue as his hands curl tighter into my hair. I round my hands about to grasp his shoulders and hold him still as my lips return to his throat and this time I zero in on his pulse point and suck without a moment’s hesitation, I’m so damn desperate to kiss him and mark him up with bruises as testaments to my touch, signs of how I want to make him feel, that my hands are shaking. 

He starts with a sudden gasp and immediately I balk, fear sapping the heat from my fingertips. _Fuck, oh no, oh no,_ _I’m going too hard too fast, I’ve got to slow down before I drive him away-_

“H-harder.” My breath hitches and I raise my gaze to meet his, my lips touching his jaw and then his chin as he looks at me with a hooded gaze, his lips are parted with short gasps. Upon seeing my hesitation his hands rise and cup my face, his nose touches mine as he looks at me with such darkness and want that my knees practically give out as he whispers again, his breath like autumn spice against my lips, “Bite me.” 

“ _Fuck_ , Keith.” I stammer and immediately press forward, kissing him again and he immediately responds with heat and passion, wrapping his arms around my neck. He nibbles on my bottom lip in a goading manner and I’m gone, I moan softly against his lips and that’s all the encouragement I needed, without thought I trail my lips back to his jawline, leaving a nip on the corner of his mouth before reaching his neck again. This time I don’t even think about hesitating, not with Keith’s hands roaming my back and his breathing so out of time and rugged, I bite the side of his neck and then press my tongue against it, sucking hard on the mark I leave as my hands slide to hold him by the small of his back, just above his knife, I can feel its hard edge on my wrist. Keith starts and I can’t help but shiver when his breath hiccups and his fingers dig into my back, heat flashes across my being and despite the chill of the night air it gets almost unbearably hot. 

Suddenly Keith plants his hands on my shoulders and pushes me away with a placid expression but furrowed eyebrows. Immediately my mind jumps to the worst as I step back, looking at him with wide eyes as I stammer, “I-I’m sorry, was - is that too-” 

“Come on.” Keith growls, his lips barely brushing mine for a moment as he pushes off of the railing before his fingers reach down and take my hand, he tugs me back towards the doorway with quick insistence. 

I blink and stumble after him, mentally reeling to the point that I have to remember to first, breathe, second, walk, and then third, think. “Where are we going?” I can’t help how breathless I sound, like I just ran a marathon and frankly that’s how I feel, my heart is beating out of my chest like thunder in my ears. _Holy fuck. I was just kissing Keith. I was just leaving_ **_hickeys_ ** _on Keith’s_ **_neck_ ** _and he was asking me to bite him and-_

Keith glances back to me as he opens the doorway, his eyes are black in the shadow of the building as he replies with a husky, breathless voice that sends a shiver up my spine, “Back to the Castle.” 

My heart leaps to my throat and immediate, and frankly embarrassing, excitement rushes through my veins, in terms of instant endorphins the simple words are like heroine. “O-okay.” I stammer, biting my lip as Keith leads me down the stairs. The radio silence in my head doesn’t last long, the cold stone in the pit of my stomach pulls me down and detracts from the heat building in my chest and self conscious worry and nervous fear claws up into my throat, I speak quickly as these feelings trip onto my tongue, “W-we don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for, or are nervous about, or don’t want to, you know. I don’t want you to-” 

Keith stops in the middle of the stairwell, whirling back towards me and I start as he touches my chin, pulling me in close and kissing me with such gentleness that I practically melt; it completely stops my train of thought until all I can think about is how wonderful cinnamon tastes. 

After a moment he pulls away, looking at me with a serious light in his eyes, “Stop thinking for a minute. Do _you_ want to?” He whispers, his breath ghosting my lips. 

Lukewarm water eases the ice in my throat and rinses it back down, I find myself relaxing under his fingertips on my chin. “Y-yeah.” I mutter softly, my mouth suddenly explicably dry, “I do.” Hunger bites into my hands and without a second of thought I press forward and kiss him again. This time it’s just because I _can_ , I can make up for all the times I stared at him in longing and wished to lose myself in his eyes and touch him and hold him- 

 _“Fuck.”_ Keith growls against my lips as he pulls away suddenly, his fingertips touching my bottom lip for a brief moment before he tugs me back down the stairs, his fingers lacing with mine. 

I can’t help but snicker, my lips breaking out into a wild smirk, “You in a rush? Got a hot date?”

“Yeah.” Keith replies simply once we get to the bottom of the stairs, I can see the shadow of his visage well enough to see him smirking, “I do.” 

_Okay, wow, that was pretty fucking gay. Where am I again?_

Keith, unfortunately, releases my hand to duck under the bar to the entry way and I quickly follow suit, tracing his footsteps in the darkened, shadowy room before we break out into the city illuminated night, the silvery spires of the Castle tower high above us and before I can truly mentally recover from the past few minutes and recognize that _holy shit this is happening_ we get into the surface projector. 

When the doors close I let out a breath, I still feel like I just went for a hard jog. In the full lights things feel different, idle, less intense, so I venture for a plaintive thought, “I wonder where the others all went off to.” I turn towards Keith when I see movement out of the corner of my eye and balk when he closes the distance, his lips are on mine so startlingly quick that for a moment I lose any and all coherency. I let out a soft noise and hold his face in my hands but before I get too lost in the touch he pulls away, his eyes are still closed as he murmurs, “Sorry, I uh…” He smiles suddenly with a sheepish lilt and my heart _dies_. 

I grab the front of his shirt with narrowed eyes, causing his voice to cut off and for him to start, he looks with a wide open, surprised gaze as I growl breathlessly against his lips, “You better hurry up before I do something unsightly in the middle of the damn Castle halls, _Kogane._ ” 

Keith visibly shivers as the threat hangs in the bare space of air between us, his lips just graze mine to press against me again right the surface projector opens. This time I pull away from beneath him and I grab his hand, I smirk at him as we set out with renewed purpose and a fresh pep in our step, my heart is pounding _ridiculously_ hard and I can’t even imagine how red in the face I am, but frankly I could _not_ care less.

The journey between the hanger to the residential hall is both agonizingly long and over in a snap, before I can even blink Keith laces his fingers in mine and takes the lead to tug me towards his room, I follow blindly like a sailor to a siren because _nothing fucking matters_ on this plane of existence except for _him_ . However, when he gets close to the door a bit of me, a wicked, bratty bit takes over and impishly I press closer when we reach Keith’s door and kiss him with full intent to make his head spin, running my hands through his hair. His breath stutters out of time against mine, it takes him several seconds of fumbling to get his door to open; I can’t help but giggle when he yanks me inside and the door closes behind me but before I can get a smart ass remark off Keith’s hands are on me and I drown in their heat. I wrap my arms around his neck as he kisses me hot and wanting and I return the favor, curling my fingers into his hair. I feel his breath stutter at the action, his hands glide down to my sides as he pushes me back against the wall, the simple action knocks all the minimal air I have out of me. Internally I want to melt into him, become a pliant mess… I’m frankly _desperate_ for it, I want to let go and embrace it but more than that I don’t wanna be selfish, I want to keep this entertaining for him, so I bite down teasingly on his bottom lip and tug his hair a little to keep him close. I’m rewarded with a breathless, barely audible moan that rocks my being so hard that I can almost see stars, I want to ask him if he likes it when I do that but any words die before I can even think them when Keith’s hands glide up my sides, dragging across the material of my shirt before he rakes them far further upward, past my stomach and up, suddenly everything gets incredibly real, _incredibly_ fast. I press forward and grab the collar of his jacket, practically ripping it off his shoulders and Keith only pulls his hands away from me long enough to shrug it off, I throw the damn thing across the room like it personally wronged me because, frankly, _it fucking has_. Keith shivers, his lips part slightly and his kisses burn like lightning strikes, each one I feel throughout my being in a single crackling instant. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness now and when he pulls away from me enough so I can see his face and the dark fire in his gaze it makes me break out in gooseflesh, his hands trail from my shoulders and down my arms. Despite the evident hunger in his expression that makes me want to press closer to him and kiss him dizzy he seems restrained, his forehead rests against mine as his fingertips trail down my chest, leaving fire in his wake as he whispers, “Can I touch here?”

Although I’m bit confused by the request I nod right as his lips suddenly return to mine, blistering and hot as his fingertips travel up my chest, touching the nape of my throat briefly before his hands move down my front, I feel something hard around his neck but before I can think about what it could be he grabs the hem of my shirt. I reach up and cup his face in my hands and kiss him with as much fire as he’s burning into me as he tugs it up, my breath stutters out of time at the feeling of the leather of his gloves on my skin, cool to the touch yet burning hot due to the hands that wear them, I pull away to raise my arms and help get my shirt off. Keith drops it aside as he immediately crashes his lips to mine again, I trail my fingertips down his jaw, his beautiful throat, his collar bone until I trail my fingertips down his chest as well. I start when Keith presses forward more and glides his fingertips upwards, his hands are on my sides and the sudden awareness of his hands on my bare skin makes me shiver, they’re gentle and searching despite how his kisses are demanding and heavy and it’s driving me _wild_ . My touch hitches on the belt over his shirt and frantically I grapple with the buckle in the front, my hands are clumsy, I struggle to get it undone and impatiently once its open I take it off, but before I toss it aside I feel his knife at the base weighing it down; it’s far heavier than I expected it to be, for a brief second I wonder at how unwieldy it must be, how deft Keith’s hands are to be able to fight with it, and with such evident skill. Instead of throwing it like I was going to I rest it on the floor with as much care as I can manage with his mouth refusing to leave mine, I can barely tell what’s up from down anymore the kisses so blistering and full of want. I reach further down and find the hem of his shirt, pressing my back flatter against the wall to disengage long enough to get it off, he raises his arms to help. He glows like ivory in the minimal turquoise light in the walls and suddenly I’m hungry to touch him, _starving_ for it, but I stop when I see the dull glimmer of metal around his neck. 

“Huh, so you _do_ still have it.” I mutter, pausing our kisses to cup my lion’s stone around his neck, dangling over his chest. As soon as I touch it a pulse of warmth rockets up my arm like I got electrocuted, it begins to glow softly, like a moon behind clouds.

Keith blinks in surprise and follows my gaze, when he sees my stone in my hand he hums in recognition, his forehead touches mine as his hands linger on my waist, “Yeah. Sorry I hung onto it for so long, I uh… it was helping.”

I raise an eyebrow, running my thumb along Kevin’s spine as I take this brief opportunity to catch my breath, “I thought it couldn’t heal over a distance.”

“It’s not that.” Keith murmurs under his breath, he touches his lips to mine just barely, just enough that I get a brief taste but no pressure as he takes my wrist touching the stone and presses it against his chest, I can almost feel his heartbeat through the stone itself as he murmurs, “I just… I dunno, I felt better. It was like you were there when I had it on.” In the dark I can see his face flush as he lets out a sudden, soft huff filled with sheepishness, “No, that’s not the best way of putting it- I don’t know. It sounds stupid to say it out loud.” 

Warmth spreads through me, through my veins and embracing my heart in a blanket fresh from the dryer. I trail my hand upwards and cup his jaw, touching his lips with my uneven breath as I speak without any thought, “‘Is not stupid. That’s… really sweet, actually. _You’re_ sweet.” 

Keith’s lets out a huff through his lips and it ghosts my features, shaking his head slightly but as he opens his mouth to speak I hook my fingers on the chain and tug him forward, kissing him with the full intention to make his head spin. His hands grab my hips as he presses closer but before I let him recover and melt into it I pull away again, resting my head against the wall as I loop the chain off of his neck and drop my stone to the floor. Its vague light dies, a light I didn’t notice was there until it was gone, but frankly, _I’ve got more important matters to attend to right now._

I shift to wrap my arms around his neck and thread my fingers through his hair as I smirk, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Don’t wanna ruin that broody, bad boy aesthetic you’ve got going on.” 

Keith growls playfully, all I can see is that _fucking smirk_ before he recloses the distance, he’s kissing me breathless to the point that they part my lips and a moan slips free, Keith swallows it without a pause and I drown in the sensation. Impatiently I press my hands against his sides, allowing them to travel his bare skin eagerly, to memorize his every dip and curve of his ribs, his stomach, his chest, but before I get too far my fingertips stall when Keith’s hands rise up my chest and touch the scars under my pectoral muscles. I hesitate, pulling away a bit to examine his pensive expression in the dark as he looks at me and then down at my chest, there’s a light in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. 

Self conscious fear climbs in my throat. _Oh no. What if he’s uncomfortable with it? Do they gross him out? I don’t want him to pull away just because of this, hold on, I can fix this-_ I move my hand down to cover my chest, reaching my other hand towards the floor in search of my shirt as I stammer under my breath, “Sorry, uh, if it’s too weird-” 

Keith stops me by touching my chin with one hand while the other presses two fingers against my lips, soft and gentle, but effectively silencing me. I let out a hitched breath and watch Keith wide eyes as his hands fall, pulling my hand out of the way with a gentle touch as the leather of his gloves travel back up my chest, leaving a burning road that sets my blood aflame. I let him, watching his expression with rapt attention as I instead rest my hands on his shoulders, fiddling with the fringes of his hair curling around his neck. 

His searching fingertips brush against one of the bruises along my sides and I wince; at the last second I try to disguise it as a breathless hiccup but it’s too late, Keith pauses and looks at me with a raised eyebrow before he looks down to examine the yellowed, barely visible bruise beneath his fingertips. He spots another healing mark higher up on my ribs, his fingertips drag across my skin and that hot sensation completely dulls any of the bare pain I could get from him prodding the bruises, after a moment he looks at me expectantly.

“Allura was helping me train while y’all were gone.” I answer his unspoken question with a shy, self conscious smile, “She kicked my ass pretty handily. She’s really strong.”

Keith smiles, his nose crinkles in such an adorable manner that suddenly my knees grow weak, why the _fuck_ do I not see him smiling more often? He presses closer and my eyes flutter shut as his lips brush my jawline, just barely kissing the skin without commitment and that makes his presence soak into my skin like steam after a hot shower. His thumbs brush the scars on my chest, they only pause for a minute to touch them before they’re traveling up to my nipples, I have to suppress a whine by biting on my tongue to keep me from embarrassing myself. It only has minor success; Keith’s lips spread into a wolfish grin as they presses soft kisses along my jaw and his fingers linger, brushing against them in teasing circles and sending sparks of pleasure up my spine to the point it’s almost _embarrassing_ how much it’s turning me on but after a moment his right hand slides further upwards, granting me momentary solace. 

He instead taps the space just over my heart and hums softly, “You have more than one tattoo.” His voice sounds contemplative, like he’s deep in thought, and after a moment his hands travel backward, to my sides, then to my back with that same, gentle, searching touch; I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall as his lips kiss my jawline chastely, all I can do is just _revel_ in his gentle touches that send me spiraling into an abyss of my own making until I realize the selfishness of the moment, my hands stall where they twist into the longer hair behind his head. _Why am I allowing myself to get so caught up in him? Quit being selfish, it’s time for me to drive him as wild as he’s driving me._

I stand upright a little more and with a sudden burning fire in the pit of my stomach I gently grab his chin and kiss him firmly, locking my lips onto his as he hums in surprise, his hands planting on my hips. I suck on his bottom lip as my hands travel from his chin to his hair, threading my fingers through the locks before pulling on them, satisfaction hissing through my veins like hot cider as Keith’s breath stammers in response. _Hmm. Found a kink._

I push him backwards with a new want rising like the tide until I’ve got him pinned to the other wall, before he can catch his breath I cup his face in my hands and bite his lip. Keith’s eyes fall shut with a soft noise at the back of his throat and it sends a hot spark through my veins, without thinking I press my thigh between his legs. 

 _“Will.”_ Keith whispers desperately against my lips but his voice hitches as he cuts himself off at the last second, I almost moan at the sound alone. I leave a gentle nip on the corner of his mouth before I trail my lips downward to his jaw, pressing myself firm against him as my hands trail down his shoulders, his chest, I take my time in feeling every inch of him to commit it to memory to hold onto, to know what he likes, _where_ he likes my hands to be before I suck on his throat again, kissing and then biting. I’ve recover my wits enough to move my lips lower, to the space where his neck meets his shoulder, a place he can _hide them_ better, _I should’ve thought about that earlier, but how the hell can I think when every touch of his short circuits my everything?_

My kisses are more than evident on Keith’s pale skin, I can already see the hickey I left from the rooftop, a hidden galaxy beneath a curl of black hair and the red indentation of my bites, the muted roses littering his skin from my hungry kisses. Looking at them and leaving more fills me with _delicious_ heat, to know that they’re there because _I put them_ there, _I_ get to be the one to kiss Keith windy and bite his neck and- _No, don’t get too distracted in yourself. Focus on him. It’s what he deserves._

With burning intent I trail my fingertips down his chest, I can feel his breath hiccup beneath my tongue on his throat and in the jump of his skin, I smirk a bit as his hands find their way to my shoulders and sides, moving, reveling, touching, _God, I feel like I’m getting drunk off of this._

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this to you.” I whisper helplessly against his skin, my eyes open as I press my forehead against his, our lips brush only briefly, long enough for me to feel the unsteadiness of Keith’s breathing. He opens his eyes and meets my gaze and I’m _blown away_ at how beautiful he looks, how gorgeous his eyes are, how soft his skin is beneath my hands. Keith’s gaze flickers down to my lips with a hungry look and I shudder, before he moves to close the distance I reach up and curl my hands in his hair, holding him still with a hard tug; it makes Keith’s eyes fall back shut and he lets out a bare bones moan that’s practically ecstasy but just like before he stops it just as it escapes, biting on his lip to silence himself. 

I raise an eyebrow and weave my fingers into his hair briefly, peering down at him as I murmur, “You keep holding back.”

Keith’s eyes open, hazy and glassy as he verbally stumbles, “What?”

“Why are you cutting yourself off when you moan?” I persist as I nip the corner of his mouth and press my thigh harder between his legs, cocking an eyebrow at him expectantly for an answer. 

To my surprise Keith blushes, rose dusts his features as he mutters, barely audible, “Don’t like being loud. It sounds annoying.”

I trail my hands down his bare chest, my heart spasms when I feel him shiver under my touch as I touch my forehead to his. “You’re not annoying. I wanna know what you like so I can give it to you. That means I wanna hear when I’m making you feel good.” 

Keith huffs softly but doesn’t answer, his face blooms a deep red as his hands trail along my shoulders and arms, they constantly move, they never rest in one place for too long, and now that I’m here there’s nothing I want more than to finally _get on my knees_ for this _fucking boy_ . _That’ll make him moan._  

My gaze bores into his expression, after a long, steadying breath I whisper, “Keith, can I taste you?” I bite my lip, not wanting to be too direct to scare him off but making my intentions clear as my fingertips grace the top of his jeans, not quite touching them but brushing the skin beneath his stomach, feeling the happy trail beneath my fingers shoots me to a whole new level of excitement. 

Keith peers at me with half open, hooded eyes and after a moment his fingertips gently curl through my hair, touching my jaw and then cupping my face with surprising tenderness as he whispers, “If you want to- _yes_.” 

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

“ _God_ , Keith, you have no _idea_ how much I want to.” I murmur in reply, I don’t bother to hide the desperation in my tone as I immediately drop to my knees before him. Keith starts a bit and when I look up to watch his expression I can see his face is beginning to burn a bright scarlet, it fills me with complete and utter satisfaction. _I can’t wait to see what faces you make when I’m making you come._

I start slow, not wanting to frighten him or move too fast, just in case he gets cold feet or wants to stop, _likely options_ . I rub my palm along the outside of his pants and kiss his lower stomach gently, not wanting to bite or suck too hard because of the sensitivity of the area, if Keith’s ticklish I’m worried he’ll accidentally hit me. Keith’s eyes partially close, his stomach sucks into his spine at the kisses and his hands immediately latch onto my head, my shoulders, touching and grabbing and it’s got me _dizzy_ . I hold his hip steady with one hand before I travel my lips lower, lower, before they’re touching the outside of his jeans. I travel my hands up to his stomach, holding his waist, touching and dragging my fingertips across his skin as I mouth the rough material and I can feel his breath stutter beneath them, it’s _intoxicating_ , his hands are moving insistently on my forearms where they reach up his chest like his touches can goad me to go faster. I use my teeth and pull on the zipper, _practice makes perfect_ , and I can feel his dick more clearly beneath his boxers beneath my lips; he’s _hard_ and the musky taste on the tip of my tongue almost sends me reeling, I’m instantaneously drunk off of it. 

I look up at Keith to check in when his hands suddenly grab mine, they grasp my wrists where they moved feeling up his chest and hold them tightly like they’re his lifelines, and _God_ he looks _good_ . Like, _really, really, deliciously good_ , his eyes are squeezed shut, his lips are slightly parted and his grip is like iron, he looks to be soaking in my touches and I could not be more _fucking turned on_ . I let him hold my wrists, now mouthing the outline of him through his boxers and his back subtly arches, I can feel the slight shake in his hands of desperation and want, _God_ I forgot how fucking great it feels to pleasure someone on my knees like this. _Even better when it’s him. I don’t remember the last time I’ve given head that I’ve enjoyed this much and I haven’t even actually started yet._

Keith’s fingers trail downward, touching my arms, my shoulders, until they rest on top of my head as I hear him let out a moan that’s below even a whisper, I barely catch it even in the relative quiet of the room as they form words, _“Will, please.”_

_Oh fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me._

_I better hurry. I don’t want him to get too impatient and push me on him faster than I’m able to take it._

Cautious against getting too close too fast I take his wrists from my head and push them against the wall, pinning them there. Keith sucks in breath and looks down at me as I press my tongue against where I can feel the tip of his cock is, after a moment I growl softly while peering up at him, “Hands to yourself.”

Wicked pleasure fills me with something like hot tea as his face blooms a deep pink and to my surprise he listens, he keeps his hands where I left them with the fingertips digging into the smooth white walls at his sides; content with this I travel my hands to his hipbones to hold him steady. _Enough dragging this out,_ **_I’m_ ** _going to lose my mind if I don’t choke him down soon, so I can’t even imagine how he’s feeling. But one last time, just in case…_

I peer up at him as my fingertips drag on the waistband of his boxers, pulling away a bit to look at him seriously, “Are you sure this is okay?” 

Keith nods quickly, his hands move to touch me but when I cock an eyebrow at him he seems to remember what I said at the last minute, reluctantly he drops his hand back to his sides, he’s twitching and antsy and it gives me a strong amount of satisfaction, especially seeing how much it’s killing him to do it. _When’s the last time I told someone to do something in bed and they actually did it?_

 _Well… it’s still early._ Slowly I push down on his boxers, just enough to reach my target and my whole body shivers when I see his dick. I can’t help but smirk, my hands trailing up the rough material of his jeans on his thighs before wrapping a hand around the base, Keith starts with a gasp as I chuckle under my breath, “ _Fuck_ this is gonna be fun.” 

Keith opens his mouth to speak but I don’t allow it, _the only thing you’re allowed to say is my name and swear words_ , I lick the tip and swirl my tongue around the head as I stroke him with my hand without preamble. Keith gasps, his hands move from his sides to cover his mouth as his head falls against the wall which ignites something hot and burning in my chest. It sends heat straight down my chest and into my own cock, suddenly my pants are too tight and _fuck_ I’m turned on so instantaneously that it leaves me shivering. _No, I’m not focusing on me and what I want. This is about him and what I think he wants, what he_ **_deserves_ ** _. If I can get him to finish on my mouth then perfect, I don’t know if he wants more than that… but if he does I’m sure he’ll let me know._

I get to work. I stroke him with one hand as my other holds his thigh, I close my lips around the head of his dick and Keith jolts, I can feel his breath hitching beneath my hands as his cock pulses on my tongue, _God_ I’m quickly slipping someplace that’s leaving my blood boiling. I keep it slow, teasingly slow at first and only once his thighs begin to tremble in longing do I speed up, bobbing my head in time with my hand and relaxing my throat, preparing it for more. 

“W-Will-” Keith gasps as I twist my wrist, I don’t look up as I pull him in deeper, my body shivers at the sound of my name and I want nothing more than to _hear it more_ . “Can I… Can I move?” Keith stumbles over his words, it fills me with pure satisfaction at how breathless he sounds. I pull off his cock with a trail of spit between my mouth and the tip, I lick my lips as I look up and meet his hooded gaze, it spends spikes of heat throughout my being to the point I forgot he’d asked me a question, _Can I move_. 

“No.” I purr with resolution, returning to the task at hand with renewed energy, bobbing my head and stroking him hard and quick, building in speed to the point Keith’s breath hitches audibly and he releases the barest of moans that he barely is able to silence, it rocks my being like nothing else. _It’s been too long since I’ve gone down on someone that I don’t think I’m ready to get face fucked, I’m still building up to deepthroating him and as hot as it would be for him to grab my hair and push me onto him I don’t want to choke. After a hiatus worst case scenario is I might accidentally throw up, God forbid-_

“Please?” Keith pleads, which is such a strange thing for him to do that I look up at him with a raised eyebrow. His fingertips grip the wall tightly, right where I told him to leave them as he looks at me with an expression I can’t identify. “I-I wanna touch you.”

My heart stutters in my chest as I meet his gaze with unmasked surprise. I guess I’m shocked he didn’t mean move his _hips_ , I assumed as such, but he means his hands, he wants to touch me with his hands… 

“... Okay.” I murmur after a moment’s pause before I return to the task at hand. I lick my lips and wrap my mouth to his dick, sucking on the tip and stroking him with my hand from the base, Keith’s breath hitches again and this time I shiver as I feel his hands traversing my skin. First they glide across my arms, biceps, shoulders until they touch the nape of my neck, my hair. As I bob my head I feel his fingertips touch along my jawline and cup my face but without guiding movements, without tugs, just… touching. And it’s driving me _wild_ , even more so when I feel the leather of his gloves against my skin. 

_Well shit, that’s a new kink I didn’t know I had. I blame his fucking atrocious fashion sense, I think it’s just made me all hot for his penchant for dated, ugly clothes._

I pull him in deeper and I feel the lack of resistance as I’m able to relax my throat and with the time to prepare I release my hand from stroking him, instead grabbing his hips tightly to keep myself steady. His breath hitches as his fingertips brush back down to my jaw, somehow knowing he can feel me sucking him this way sends hot burns up to my face as I pull him in and much to my surprise I’m able to take him down to the base. _Well damn, way to go me, I guess it’s like riding a bike_. 

Keith lets out a gasping breath, a soft moan following after that he attempts to contain but it’s just barely, it’s got me _shaking_ it’s _so fucking satisfying_ , even though my jaw’s starting to grow sore. _It’s more than worth it to help Keith let go, to get him to moan for me. I want him to know it’s okay for him to moan, I want him to know he’s safe with me and that he can let go. I’m not going anywhere, Keith, I’m not pulling away this time._

His hands travel back up to my arms and then to my hand where it holds his hip steady, his fingers wrap around my wrist and suddenly he pulls me upward, much to my shock as I have to stumble a bit to rise back to my feet. I look at him with confusion, pulling away slightly with worry immediately seizing my throat but before I can ask _is this okay, did I push too far,_ Keith closes the distance and kisses me, his hands cup my face and despite his desperate breathing against my lips his kisses are gentle, passionate, wanting but sweet, it fills me with something warm that I can’t quite describe. 

He guides me backwards and I feel something soft hit the back of my knees, I sit with a surprised noise, looking up at him with wide eyes as his hand cups my chin. He angles my face up to his as he shifts forward, I slide backwards on his bed to give him room and when I meet his gaze my heart and lungs completely stop functioning because of how… _soft_ his expression is. Gentle and sweet but with an undeniable spark of heat, it gives me such a violent surge of warmth, my thoughts scatter to the winds, my heart’s off beat and my lungs are out of time, the only metronome to the sundering in my head is his hand cradling my jaw and his thumb brushing over my bottom lip, a touch like raw sugar that I instantaneously crave. 

Keith joins me on his bed, his knees resting against it and awkwardly I kick my shoes off to avoid getting them on his sheets, my breath stutters as his hand on my chin travels down my throat, my chest, his eyes follow his fingertips that leave fire in my wake before they pause hovering over my stomach, not quite touching. I close my eyes as hot waves crash over me, partially the heat of the moment but mostly the embarrassment of how hard as _fuck_ I am right now, and knowing that Keith can most definitely see it.

“Your turn?” Keith whispers with a raise eyebrow at me, his fingertips touch the button of my pants and my soul _leaves my body_ at how _hungry_ his expression is, I don’t realize what he’s implying until several beats after I’m able to recover coherency. 

“I… You wanna blow me?” I stutter with an incredulous tone, biting my lip as I murmur with absolute surprise, “Are you sure? You don’t have to-” 

Keith presses forward and kisses me suddenly, shutting me up instantaneously. I’m finding the repeated feeling to be absolutely mind blowing, the abrupt cut of my thoughts, the radio silence in my head, I’ve never enjoyed the quiet so much in my life. He pulls away after a moment with his thumb still touching my bottom lip, his gaze is affectionate and his tone is soft, “If you’re not comfortable with that…” 

I blush darkly, mumbling incoherently before I can stop myself, “No it’s okay, uh, sorry, I- Guys I’ve been with don’t like giving oral, so I’ve never-” I halt, sudden embarrassment seizing my throat and immediately I switch in an alternate direction, “But I do, a lot, so it’s-”

Keith blinks at me stupidly, briefly silencing me with his fingertips resting over my mouth before he murmurs, “Wait, you’re serious?”

I blink back at him with equal confusion before I shrug, his fingers fall to my chin and my face rises in color as I mutter in slight embarrassment, “It’s not a big deal. Some people just don’t like to do that and that’s okay…. I don’t mind. I’m more than happy to do it without… compensation, I guess, but it’s not _really_ compensation, it sounds bad when I say it like that…” 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow, he leans forward and his breath brushes mine as he too kicks off his shoes and gets fully on the bed with me, he’d pulled up his pants to cover himself at some point that I’d missed, too lost in the sensations to notice. “I’m changing that.” He whispers against my lips and I’m racked with a full body shudder that goes _straight_ to the suffocating heat in my pants. He shifts closer with his hands on my thighs, maneuvering himself between them and my heart rate spikes, a hot pulse rushing from my throat straight to my cock at the movement, _there is something absolutely, stunningly hot about Keith wedging himself between my legs and I literally cannot fathom how I lived life without experiencing this_ . _And now he wants to blow me, of all things, I… he’s not just doing this because he thinks I want it, right? I made that clear, didn’t I?_  

Suddenly nervous as hell I shiver when his lips press against mine but to my surprise he doesn’t move from there, he merely kneels with my legs draped slightly over his thighs. I’m sitting up on my palms to reach his mouth that’s dizzying and hot and _delicious_ , the longer he moves his lips against mine, the more his tongue plays against my teeth, the more relaxed I become, it’s strangely settling for him to touch me so gently. 

I cup his face with one hand while the other holds me upright and that’s when Keith’s hands move, one on my thigh and the other holding my chin. His fingertips glide down my throat until his hand pushes on my chest, his lips follow me until my back is pressed against his bed, I gasp against him when his tongue teases my bottom lip and his hands travel down my chest. They hitch on my jeans before traveling to my thighs, pulling them closer to wrap around his hips and I practically moan at the simple movement, I can’t help it, everything’s on fire and sensitive as fuck with him so close, touching me everywhere and kissing me like he has all the time in the world. He presses closer and inadvertently his hips press against mine and my body heat _skyrockets_ , immediately my hands grab at his lower back and I push my hips upward against his, grinding against him without a second thought. Keith shivers and his lips part against mine with a barely audible moan that he chokes on at the last second and my system damn near shuts down, it’s so much, it’s so hot and good and new that I’m _drowning_ in the feeling of him pressing against me, _I want him so badly._

Keith pulls away before I can try and dwindle his resolve that hangs onto his silent vow, much to my dismay. I attempt to follow his lips but instead they shift to my throat,and leave open mouthed kisses that practically make my lungs up and quit on me, I barely hear his voice against my skin, hitched and breathless, “Can I leave marks on you, too?”

I literally can’t nod fast enough, _“Please.”_ I feel Keith’s lips pull back into a wolfish grin against my neck and for a moment I consider trying to rope myself in, to try to sound less like a desperate bitch in heat, to try and play a little harder to get but it’s so _hard_ to when he’s so close, touching me, kissing me, _laying in between my legs_ - 

I start when he bites on the space between my neck and my shoulder, I race my hands from his back to his shoulders as he sucks on the indentation of his teeth and I can’t help but moan. Keith’s hands move downward, gliding along my skin and leaving a burning path before his hands get to the waistband of my pants, tugging them down as his lips shift to my chest, my hips buck when he locks his teeth on my collarbone and then lathers the mark with his tongue, I’m on _cloud nine_ and I _never_ wanna come back down. I shiver as he leaves a gentle kiss over the growing bruise before he sits up, tugging on the legs of my pants and pulling them all the way off, I push back in assistance as my breath stutters out of time. With the space between us to get my pants off my thoughts start to catch up to me, internally a worry begins to foster and worm its way through my chest, unwelcome and cold, _what if this is too fast? What if he’s not gonna like what he sees, he hesitated when he touched the scars on my chest, I don’t want him to get wigged out by the scars from phalloplasty, they aren’t super evident except on the top but it must still be weird to have them someplace so intimate, Cole got freaked out by them because he gets grossed out by medical stuff, what if Keith’s only doing this because he feels bad, like he feels that he has to reciprocate-_

Keith tosses my pants aside and immediately he recloses the distance, giving me such a blistering kiss that I’m reeling, I part my lips with a soft noise as he lowers himself forward onto me and when his chest is flush against mine my body heat _spikes_ , I literally feel like he’s set me on fire it’s so _hot_ all of a sudden. I wrap my legs around his waist and rake my fingers through his hair, causing him to let out a soft breath against my lips and I drink in the sound like I’m dying of thirst and finally found an oasis. Keith’s hands slide down my arms to my shoulders and then to my sides and up again, his lips drag from mine to my jawline and I let out a shaky gasp as he starts kissing my throat again, automatically my hands find themselves on his shoulders. I wind my fingers through the fringes of his hair at the nape of his neck as he kisses my shoulder, his hands drag down until they’re holding my hips steady and slowly he begins to shift. I sit up a bit on my elbow as he leaves a kiss over the tattoo over my chest, he gives me a hooded look that in it of itself makes me shiver before his lips trail down to my nipple and I flush _immediately_ , I close my eyes and let my head fall backwards just so I don’t have to look at how _obscene_ he looks, he has no _fucking right_ -

“Like that?” Keith’s voice is husky and low and it drives a stake into my heart at the sound when I feel him smirking, his tongue sucking against the sensitive nub and making my heartbeat stammer _violently_ out of time. All I can truly manage is a soft whimper in response, I’m already so damn overwhelmed, I can’t help it with how fast Keith’s tongue’s pushing me in that direction, and neither of us have even _touched me_ yet. 

I shiver as he continues to glide lower, his lips touch the scar beneath my pectoral and when he does I look back up again to watch him leave hot, open mouthed kisses down my chest. I bite my lip as a fresh blush rises in my face when his arms brace on either side of my hips, the inevitable path is filling me with so much anticipation I’m physically trembling.

Keith looks up at me as his hands brace on either side of my waist, my legs are pinned beneath them, spread to accommodate his shoulders, after a gentle kiss just below my stomach he murmurs, “This okay?” 

A different, gentler sort of heat rushes my face as I dig my fingertips into the sheets, I bite my lip briefly before I swiftly nod in response, “Yeah. Yes.” 

Keith watches me for a moment more, his eyes are black in the shadow of his bangs and searching, it makes me shiver in self consciousness as his hands rest on my hips. Keith’s gaze flickers back downward but as his hands touch the waistband of my boxers they stall, I can feel his right hand touching just above my hipbone. I watch him he gently fingers the scar there, just a bit larger than his thumb, and he glances up at me with an expression I can’t read, it’s muted and soft. After a moment he leans down and kisses it gently, almost reverently, it fills me with an unfamiliar warmth that I don’t know what to do with. 

After a moment his fingers get to the waistband of my boxers and he sits up, I flicker my gaze from his hands tugging the last of my clothes off to Keith’s violet gaze boring into mine, like he’s searching for something in my expression rather than watching his hands. He pulls them all the way off and tosses them aside before he finally breaks eye contact with me, it would be a relief save for where his eyes relocate, I try my hardest not to shrink beneath his gaze, suddenly self conscious. Keith’s hands _\- still wearing those damn gloves, oh my God -_ grasp my thighs and after a moment he shifts lower, he kisses the inside of them as his hands glide higher to my waist, I have to close my eyes and take the blissful ignorance approach to mitigate how self conscious I’m feeling. At least, that is until I feel his lips touch the tip of my dick and I jolt rather hard, opening my eyes and immediately zoning back in on Keith, _never mind, never mind, fuck, this is already so hot, I’m gonna drown in it if I immerse myself in it too deep, fuck, fuck, oh my God._ He glances up at me curiously as he leaves an open mouthed kiss at the base and my lungs collapse, I straight up _do not care_ about breathing anymore. Keith’s hands glide up my sides and rest on my hips as his tongue touches the head and I dig my fingers into the comforter so hard my knuckles turn white, I let out a sound like a broken air compressor, Keith raises an eyebrow at me curiously and I try not to blush in embarrassment. Suddenly Keith sits up a bit and with a rugged, rushed breath he bites the hem of his gloves and tugs them off with his teeth, switching to do the same with the other before he tosses the articles aside faster than I’ve thought possible, before I can even begin to fathom how ridiculously _hot_ that was his hand wraps around my dick. I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut briefly before opening them again to bear my gaze straight into Keith’s, his touch is sweltering and _nice_ , it’s nearly driving me someplace burning and new and _feral_. 

“You’re sensitive.” Keith murmurs with a cocky smirk, one that shoots straight through my soul and pins me to the bed.

Embarrassed, I huff with a rising blush in my face, “I-I can’t help it, you’re being all hot and looking at me like that! Do you have any idea what your fucking _eyes_ even _do_ to me?” 

Keith smirks at me with a sudden challenging light in his gaze before he drops his head, he kisses the tip of my cock before he parts his lips and takes me in without breaking eye contact with me and my soul leaves my body with no intent on returning. I moan softly and almost instinctively a hand reaches out to thread through his hair, raking his bangs out of his eyes, I’m enraptured, I can’t look away, like I would _want to_ because this is the greatest sight I’ve ever seen. I gasp when I feel Keith’s voice against me as his eyes flutter shut, he wraps his lips completely around me and starts to bob his head, my fingers tighten their hold on his bangs into a closed fist, out of his face as lightning strikes through my blood. _Fuck. Oh my God. Keith is blowing me. Keith is giving me a motherfucking_ **_blowjob_ ** _, right here, in this plane of reality, this isn’t a dream, it’s happening and it’s so fucking good, I never thought it would feel this fucking amazing-_

Keith’s hand wraps around the base of my dick and starts to stroke and I’m _gone_ , the simple action gives me a one way ticket to heaven and I feel my hips buck against my will as hot heat pools beneath his bare palms. 

 _“Keith.”_ I stammer his name and immediately I feel Keith’s hand on my hip tighten, his voice humming sends shocks of red hot pleasure straight through me as his tongue swirls around the head, it’s _so so good, oh my God_ . Keith’s hand releases my cock and instead both glide up my hips to my waist, I bite my lip when suddenly he goes deeper, he pulls me down his throat and the heat encasing me is so much, it’s so _fucking good_ that inadvertently I wrap a leg around his shoulders, both of my hands latching onto his hair as a loud moan rocks my being, I can’t silence it, all I can feel is him, his warm wet heat swallowing me and drowning me.

Keith growls as he pulls off only briefly, sucking on the head with a slight, lazy smirk as he looks up at me and everything gets hotter, I feel fire under my tongue and in my veins and I know almost immediately that I’m _not_ gonna last long, I let a hand fall back to the sheets to grab onto while the other brushes his hair from his face. He looks at me with a dizzying gaze, one of his hands holding the thigh I’d unintentionally roped around his shoulders and after a moment he cocks an eyebrow and _fucking smirks_ , “Take it you like that?”

I don’t get the chance to respond as Keith drops his head again and envelops me once more, he moves his head faster and I goad him on by yanking my hands in his hair and moaning freely, it’s so _much_ and so new and so _good_ . One hand stays holding my thigh around him, keeping it draped on his shoulders and back as the other reaches higher, he shifts up my body a bit as his hands trace my chest, searching and grabbing in desperation and it makes my head spin in a thousand different directions, both of my hands coil tightly in his hair, I’m barely cognizant of moaning under my breath, “ _Please, please keep going, oh my God, Keith, please.”_  

My cock pulses in Keith’s mouth as he moans and his fingertips drag to my collarbone, to my neck, I shiver at the sensation right before his fingers wrap around my throat and gently squeeze. Suddenly my body grows rigid against my will, I tense up and on instinct I suck in breath to hold onto, sealing my eyes shut in preparation for more pressure that doesn’t come. As soon as his hand is there it’s gone, I don’t trust myself to let out a breath until I feel a sudden chill grow from within my chest. I open my eyes when the suffocating heat is gone with it and leaves me cold, Keith’s hovering over me and his hand brushes my hair out of my eyes as he looks at me with a gentle gaze, alight in concern. “Was that not okay?” He asks in a soft voice, his hand cups my face as he looks at me with such soft expression that my breath hiccups in my chest. I find it difficult to answer, my tongue gets tied and the only words I can think of are _I’m sorry I didn’t mean to, it was just instinct, I didn’t mean to, please don’t freak out and leave me because I can’t handle a stupid thing like choking._

I only manage just a few words of my rampaging thoughts, “S-Sorry,” I bite my lip, reaching up and holding his wrist that cradles my face as I stammer, “I didn’t mean to, I’m okay, I’m sorry, you can-”

Keith leans in and silences me with a chaste kiss, soft and warm and the tension under my skin eases, the icy fear soothes in my limbs and melts into nothingness so fast it’s like it was never there. Keith pulls away only after a brief moment, his forehead rests against mine as his voice rumbles, “Don’t be sorry, Will.” I shiver at the sound of my name as he leaves another gentle kiss on my lips, he speaks softly in a bare murmur, “I won’t do it again.”

I don’t know what it is about his words that make my entire body shiver and beg for his touch more than ever before, but it _rips through_ me like pulling up string lights from the walls, the desperation of his touch before pales in comparison to how hungry I am for him now, I’m _shaking_ with starvation, I need him _now_ . I follow after Keith’s retreating lips for more, grabbing his face and kissing him with burning ferocity as I curl my fingers in his hair and he immediately complies with a hitched breath against my lips, trying to stifle it at the last second with minor success. I seek for more, I _ache_ for more, there isn’t a part of my body that isn’t actively burning or wanting to be set aflame in that moment, I kiss him with full intention to leave him breathless and I’m met with immediate results, his breath stutters as his hands glide up and down my sides, searching and exploring. I bite on his lip and he lets out a shaky moan that he abruptly cuts off at the last second but even the hint of the sound he made shoots straight through me like an arrow ripping through my chest, taking out any restraint I may have had in one fell swoop. 

I press forward with a rough shove against Keith’s chest and push his back against the wall his bed is pressed against. Keith lets out a sharp breath, looking at me with curious, wide eyes as I swing my leg over his lap, straddling him as I close the distance again, pressing myself flush against him. Keith lets out a hard breath against my lips, his teeth nip on my bottom lip as his hands immediately grasp my waist, gliding down to my hips and then down my thighs, I’m practically drunk. Drunk on him, his scent, his taste on my tongue and on my skin, the feeling of his hands on me and the chill of the air around my cock where his lips once were and it’s _the greatest sensation on the face of this Earth_. 

_I’ve gotta make sure this is what he wants. If he does then it’ll be time to return the favor._

I run my fingers through his hair to push his bangs out of his face so I can look at him as I let out a hot breath against his lips, “Keith, I _want you_ .” My voice is rough and raw, I’d be embarrassed if it weren’t for the constant rush of adrenaline from his hands touching everywhere, gliding up my sides and resting on my thighs as I speak without stopping or ceasing or pausing or hitching, _oh yes_. 

Keith’s breath stutters out of time and he presses his lips firmer against mine, pulling on my waist to keep me close and after a moment he rasps, “Me, too.” He looks up at me with a look that fills me with all manners of heat, liquid and burning like a blowtorch through my chest. 

Despite the warmth of his gaze and the gentle touches of his hands, pulling me closer and dragging across my skin, the frost that persists deep down crawls forth from someplace that even the fires burning around me don’t seem to reach but for the brief moments where I’m drowning in the lava of Keith’s touches and kisses. “Are you sure you wanna do this?” I mutter. Despite how this moment is the most time I’ve had to recover my breathing, Keith looking at me with this _warmth_ and _want_ makes it harder, like I’m breathing through a snorkel. 

Keith’s hands hold onto me just at my ribcage, his fingers splay out across the surface of my skin as his gaze flickers downward, to my chest. He speaks after a moment in a low rumble, “Yeah. But only if you do.” His gaze flickers up to meet mine again, in the soft blues of the lights around the room they’re essences of the night sky trapped within him, my heart’s in my throat and want is pulsing in the palms of my hands as I press them against his shoulders, then cupping his face. 

Slowly I let out a shaky breath, “ _Fuck_ , Keith.” Keith shivers beneath me and I find myself smirking a bit as I let my hands fall down to his, touching his wrists and encouraging them to press against my chest as I purr, “Alright, okay, fine, then I’ll leave this up to you: wanna help me, or watch me?” 

Keith blinks at me stupidly for a solid few seconds before he verbally stumbles, “... What?” 

“I said…” I purr in a deeper whisper, leaning forward and biting the lobe of his ear as I guide his hands backwards, resting them on the space just below the small of my back to better send the point home, “Do you wanna _help me_ or _watch me?_ ” 

Keith gulps as his fingertips dig into my skin, gliding downward until he rests them on my ass with a shaky breath, gentle and searching like they’re lost as a soft sound that’s confused and _fucking adorable_ escapes from his lips, “I don’t… What do you mean?”

I kiss the tip of his nose gently as I shift closer, whispering with patient elaboration, “I need to stretch first before you can… you know, put it in. So do you wanna _help_ me do it or _watch_ me do it.” 

 _“Oh.”_ Keith suddenly starts, I blink in surprise as his hands reach up and grab mine, holding my wrists gently as his face erupts a bright scarlet, “Shit, sorry. I uh… I didn’t know what you were talking about. That was kind of a vague way of putting it.” 

I smirk a bit and kiss him tenderly, cradling his face in my hands and only once the tension in his fingers laxes and he melts into it do I release him, pulling away just enough that our lips still brush but I can speak, “My bad. Do you still…?”

 _“Yes.”_ Keith whispers breathlessly, he presses forward for a firmer kiss but I retreat back just a bit, keeping my hand on his collarbone to keep the distance, to check just one more time but before I can even ask Keith lets out an impatient huff, his hands sliding down my forearms to grip me tighter as he murmurs, “Will, I’m not going anywhere.” I blink at him stupidly, my blood stills in my veins as he touches his forehead to mine, his voice is soft and _raw_ , “I want to do this with you. _I want you._ ” His lips press against my jaw with an open mouthed kiss and I let out a heady sigh, my pulse stammers so hard that I’m positive he must hear it or feel it beneath his tongue. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

“Fuck, _fuck_ , alright, alright.” I whisper breathlessly, after a moment I’m able to mentally recover and smiling a bit shyly as I shift back a bit, anticipation humming through my veins like a starting car, “This’ll take a bit without lube, _‘but a hoe makes do’_. Just be patient with me.” I smirk to myself with a soft laugh, my lungs stutter in my chest when I see Keith’s smitten expression glued to mine. After a moment of mentally working myself up to it I produce as much spit as I’m able to and collect it onto the fingertips of my left hand, I rest the other on Keith’s shoulder to hold me steady as I reach around behind me to stretch myself out. 

The first finger goes in surprisingly easy, I shut my eyes tight as slight embarrassment flushes my face, I can feel Keith’s breath cascading waves of heat against my skin like a Texan breeze, it grows shorter when I bite my lip and add a second finger, getting down to the _stretching_ part. Keith’s hands slide along my skin and my hand on his shoulder grips tighter when he hesitantly pulls my ass cheeks apart, his lips press against my collarbone and it’s _ridiculous_ how fast my body heat skyrockets, I let out a soft whimper that grows to a breathless moan. I work the two fingers in and out slowly, taking my time because I don’t want it to hurt. With others I didn’t mind if it hurt at first because I was desperate to just get them _in_ me, it didn’t matter if they didn’t take their time because I just wanted to be _filled up_ . But that’s why I’m doing it myself, I want this to take time, I don’t want to rush it because I want this to last _forever_ . And selfishly I’ll admit… I don’t want it to hurt with Keith. _Selfish, selfish. But if he gets too antsy I’ll hurry…_

Keith’s lips gravitate to my jaw and I feel his tongue touch my pulse, a shaky moan escapes my lips as I push my fingers deeper. Keith’s hands glide along my skin to my lower back, up my sides, before gentle fingers brush my forearm behind me and then brushing against my hand as it works in and out of me. It feels so _hot_ all of a sudden, feeling his hands roaming and his kisses on the side of my neck and when he bites against my skin with a steamy breath I can’t stop the raw moan that escapes. I bury my face into Keith’s shoulder and busy myself kissing him, biting, sucking, doing anything to keep my mouth busy to the point I’m barely paying attention to anything besides accommodating the stretch and Keith’s breath hiccuping and his hands gripping onto my hips tighter, pulling me closer. He grinds against me and I feel the heat of his length under his boxers, I let out a shaky breath and moan into his ear, _“Ah, Keith.”_

I suck in breath sharply when one of his hands grip my thigh tightly, the other resting on the small of my back as I curl my fingers. I pull away a bit to sit upright more, pulling my fingers out to get some more spit on them before reaching back around again, I touch my forehead to his afterwards with my eyes screwed shut and when I press inside again I stretch back to one, then two quickly, before I start to work in a third and that’s when my resolve begins to dwindle. I press my lips to Keith’s neck and bite, wanting to feel his hips buck against me but instead his hands just tighten, he chokes down on a barely audible sound.

“Come on, Keith.” I whisper against the bare skin of his throat, sucking on a fresh bruise and Keith’s breath stutters out of time, I bite on his earlobe as I push deeper and despite how I want to focus on him I hitch because it’s _such_ a great feeling, a feeling I’d forgotten but now it’s real and it’s getting close and _I’m_ getting close, I seal my eyes tightly shut. _“Hah, Keith, mm.”_ I moan softly and I start as Keith shivers, his hand grabs my hair and he burns me with a swelting kiss before he breaks away to busy his mouth with kisses on my neck and my collarbone. It’s hard to focus on the task at hand with his hands and teeth roaming my skin, that alone is making any sort of concentration hard enough without _talking_ and feeling his breath on my neck and his lips touching my jaw, but I can feel his mouth is moving to busy himself to avoid making a sound, despite how _fucking amazing_ he’s making me feel I want him to know it’s okay. That I want him to let loose for me.

I mumble almost incoherently, trying my best despite the deep burning heat welling beneath my fingertips, “Come on, I know you wanna moan for me, Keith- _oh God_ .” I bite my lip as the words almost threaten an outright moan from freeing itself as I push my fingers in deep, I can feel Keith’s hand touching my wrist, feeling my movements under his touches and it’s driving me _wild_ , like he’s watching me with his fingertips. 

“Don’t get distracted, now.” Keith purrs in response and when his mouth latches onto my shoulder he sucks, hard, it racks my being to the point I’m letting out a broken moan. _That’s it, I’m ready, I can’t wait anymore, I need him right now or I’m gonna fucking die._

 _“Fuck, Keith.”_ I whisper with a shiver, pulling my fingers out before I reach between us and grab onto the waistband of his pants, getting off of him only to rip his _stupid fucking clothes off, how the hell have I allowed them to stay on this long_ before I return to my position in his lap and suddenly it gets so real, so fast. Keith helped to kick them off and as soon as I’ve returned to his lap he immediately leans up and kisses me dizzy, my lips part and my tongue teases his and his hands reach around and loop around my waist, holding my close. I touch his shoulders and with the skin on skin contact, the heat of his length is on my inner thigh, it’s so _unbelievably hot_ that I seriously feel like I’m about to burst into flame beneath his hands, desperate for more friction I grind my hips down on him. Keith’s hands grab my waist tightly as he gasps against my lips, I bite and suck on his bottom lip as I gyrate my hips again and I ascend to a new plane of existence, one that’s full of heat and want with the taste of cinnamon and salt but before I get too lost I pull myself back under control, it’s like herding cats but it gets easier once I manage to stop grinding on him. Keith huffs in dismay but eases when I cup his face in my hands and brush his bangs out of his face, resting my forehead against his to look at him, to _really_ look at him. 

Keith’s eyes, half lidded in pleasure, slowly open and I look deep into the violet galaxies and indigo nebulas within, he looks confused and out of this _fucking world_ as I touch his jawline and whisper softly, “Are you sure you want this? We can stop whenever you want. You’re in complete control of where we’re going.” I kiss him softly, compared to the bout of heated, passionate, and scorching kisses we’ve shared until this point this one is chaste but it nonetheless leaves me breathless, satisfied yet also aching for more. 

Keith chases after me for more kisses, soft and tender and needy that it takes several minutes for him to be able to answer, “Yeah. I’m okay.” He releases a breath as he brushes a strand of crimson out of my eyes, his fingertips tracing my cheekbones before resting on my lips, “But only if you- I mean, do you…” He pauses suddenly, a dark red flushing against his face as he mutters shyly, “... Do you still want me?” 

My reaction is immediate; I break into a grin and laugh breathlessly, kissing him again with more passionate intent before I whisper in a hoarse tone, “Keith, I’ve wanted you since you let me borrow your fucking _ugly ass_ jacket.” Keith shivers visibly. I press my lips to forehead, taking in the sight of him before me; his chest rises and falls with breathless rasps, some sweat clings strands of inky hair to his forehead, his pupils are blown wide and they turn his eyes almost black in the minimal lighting, the delicious purple marks like flower petals in cotton litter his neck, his shoulders, and accentuate the red indentations, evidence of my teeth. 

“Since you saved _my_ life.” I whisper, cupping his cheek gently in my hand and running my fingertips along his deliciously bitten red lips. Keith’s eyes close as he leans up into my touch, he looks like a carved statue of an angel with his face turned to heaven and it makes my heart _shake_ in my chest. _I don’t care the hurt that’s happened in the past, the insanity of the world that led to this moment. Nothing short of divine influence brought me here to be with him. It’s almost enough to make me believe that some higher power, a sick, sadistic higher power, may just be looking out for me, if only for tonight._

_Fucking hell, enough with the sappy train thoughts, I need to ride this boy until all he knows is the feeling of my hands in his hair and my name on his lips. I swear I’m gonna make him moan if it’s the last thing I do._

I lick my lips before collecting more spit onto my palms, reaching down behind me and slathering Keith’s dick with as much as I can, Keith’s breath immediately hiccups and his hands find my shoulders, his hips tip up subtly beneath my touch. I wind my fingers into his hair and tug and Keith’s reaction is immediate, I can feel his cock twitch in my hand as I stroke him, his breath hitches and his eyes flutter open as his hands grab my hips and hold them in a vice grip, it’s nothing short of a religious experience. _This is the best a bitch can do in a lubeless situation. I just hope it doesn’t hurt anything too badly. I don’t know, maybe I should use some more? No, no, it’s fine, after that one time-_

Inadvertently I stiffen, I have to literally shake my head to rid the thought from my mind. **_No_ ** _. We aren’t thinking about him now. I’m with Keith. Keith wouldn’t._

_You say that now, but are you really sure that won’t change later?_

_Shut up. Shut up, shut up._ Desperate to silence the sudden turn in my thoughts I press forward and kiss Keith with fresh urgency and he responds in kind, I feel his breath cascading against my lips and it has the desired affect, it shuts up my thoughts so quick that the only thing I can think of is the heat of his length in my hand and the taste of cinnamon on my tongue. 

I can’t waste any more time. I raise my hips and steady a hand on Keith’s shoulder and inadvertently draw him closer, slowly I keep the other hand on his cock to guide me down and _sink_. 

Keith shivers and his hands immediately latch onto my hips, his breath stutters against my chest as I bite my lip; it aches with the stretch but to my absolute relief it doesn’t sting, it’s just far… _girthier_ than what I was expecting, my breathing almost immediately heightens. Keith bites down on the skin of my shoulder that’s closest to him almost desperately, like when you’re in pain and you just have to bite something, anything; it’s a welcome distraction from the discomfort of the stretch. His hands glide upwards and shift to wrap completely around me, gliding down to the small of my back to help guide me just as slowly as I’m moving but without pressing, it’s almost less guiding than following. I let out a shaky groan that’s an octave higher than usual, I bite down on my lip as my legs begin to shake curled on either side of Keith’s thighs, I bury myself in him quickly because I’m so _fucking desperate to be filled it’s ridiculous_. 

Keith lets out a hard, shaking breath, leaving an open mouthed kiss on my chest before his hands rest on my thighs. Feeling them shake he whispers in a course tone, “Relax, Will. Relax for me.” I let out a quiet moan and let my head fall back, reveling in the filling feeling, _God_ it feels so _fucking_ good, _oh my God-_

When I’m seated fully on Keith immediately I start stammering in a low moan, “F-Fuck. Oh _fuck._ ” I take a shaking breath, resting a hand on Keith’s neck while the other winds into his hair, I leave an open mouthed kiss on Keith’s jaw as he breathes like he just did sprints. His hands gravitating lower until he’s palming my ass, I damn near lose my mind at the sensation. _“Hah, Keith.”_ I whine, I don’t wait, now that I’m here even though the stretch is still there I _can’t fucking wait anymore_ , I start to rock my hips forward and back. 

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck, fuck_ .” Keith’s breath is hoarse and raw as he wraps his arms tightly around me, his forehead rests against my collarbone and I can feel his breath hot and wild against my skin, he’s trembling and I can tell he wants to move but to my surprise he doesn’t; he stays still, he doesn’t even arc his back or push on my hips, he just holds onto me tightly and leaves me room to move on my own. I bite my lip to suppress a moan as I shift, clawing my fingers through his raven black hair and pressing desperate kisses to the side of his face to keep my mouth busy, to keep me from moaning because it’s so _fucking good_ , I _love_ the burning feeling of him buried in me. I raise my hips and start to move, rising off his cock then lowering myself back onto him slowly but surely and I’m _drowning_ in the heat of his hands desperately holding onto me, his nails dig into the small of my back and startled I let out a soft moan, _“Oh fuck yeah, hm.”_ I bite my lip and press my forehead to Keith’s briefly, holding my hands on his chest as I move and I keep my eyes tightly shut. Desperation slowly begins to climb and I let my hips rise with it, I straighten upright with my hands on his shoulders and start to ride him with earnest. 

Keith shudders, his lips parted in a heady moan pressed against my chest and I feel his tongue brush my nipple and something snaps in me, I let out a desperate moan that’s so surprisingly loud that I end up curling a hand into Keith’s hair. Keith lavishes my chest with open mouthed kisses as his hands find my waist, he grabs them tightly and starts applying pressure, helping me bounce on his cock and I nearly lose it right there, the pleasure is so heady and all consuming it burns through my veins and sets me on _fire_ . _He’s distracting me. God, it’s so good, fuck, oh fuck me. But he’s distracting me, I can’t ride him well enough if he’s touching me like this_. 

I pause only briefly, opening my eyes to kiss Keith with bites and tongues before I twist him to lay flat on his back. He watches me with wide eyes, only stalling briefly as he mumbles almost incoherently, “What’re you…?” Ultimately he complies, his hands gliding up from my hips to my sides and up my chest, I plant my hands on his stomach for leverage and grind down on my hips, gasping with the fresh angle as it delves just a little deeper. 

Keith shivers, his grip on my waist tightens and then his hands glide to grab my thighs, his hands are hot and welcome and _delicious_ , I smirk down at him with what’s left of my coherency and purr, “I’m gonna make you _lose your mind_.” With that I push against his stomach harder and clench around him as I ride him.

“Fuck, Will, Will, _Will_ .” Keith moans softly, a pleading mantra that punches the breath out of me as I move and it’s making my hips hiccup out of time. I bite my lip and shudder as I ride him like my life depends on it because quite frankly that’s how it feels, my heart is beating out of my chest, my skin is scorching hot where it meets Keith’s and what’s even better is feeling how desperately needy Keith’s hands are on me, moving and grabbing and touching, and how breathless he is as he watches me with rapt attention, for once I’m not self conscious in the slightest. I shiver as I shift, leaning forward and planting my hands on either side of Keith’s head for a less tiring position as I grind backwards against him, moving faster and faster _God I need it faster_. 

Keith lets out a moan, his hands grab my waist and inadvertently his hips buck, without warning the shock of pleasure causes white spots to flash before my eyes and I let out a desperate, shocking whine. 

Keith’s hands tighten at the sound as my arms start to shake from the mounting heat, between heavy breaths Keith rasps, “Are you alright?” 

 _“Fuck, yes, Keith.”_ I stammer; before I get the better of myself, I touch my forehead to his as I press back against him, focusing on my movements to not get too wild and out of control so I don’t hurt myself. Keith’s breathing stutters out of time and as I ride him his hands glide backwards until they’re on my ass, they follow my movements as I struggle to breathe until his hips start to move. I’m not expecting it, it’s sudden and surprising but it’s _hot as fuck_ all of a sudden, I have to clap a hand over my mouth to keep from moaning like a _damn slut_ ‘cause that’s how good it feels but plenty slips out regardless, _“Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh my GOD.”_

Keith’s hands gravitate up my back as he starts to move his hips against mine, it’s making my head spin as Keith’s hands reach my shoulderblades and with gentle fingers he holds me against him, it prohibits me from sitting back up to ride him fully. Right as I’m about to voice as such, _I can’t ride you if you’re holding me down_ , he suddenly starts thrusting into me and I’m _gone_. My lips part in a moan as I bury my face into Keith’s shoulder, I start mumbling straight nonsense as he moves and I feel my hands desperately grab and yank on the sheets beyond Keith’s head. 

“You like that?” His voice is rough and husky against the skin of my neck and _God_ it’s the hottest sound I’ve ever heard, his hips move against mine and with a particularly hard thrust my breath is punched straight out of me, I have to bite Keith’s shoulder to keep quiet but I’m losing that control fast, _another bout like that…_ Keith pushes against my hips and I let out a sharp whine, his breath stammers out of time and my knuckles are white they’re grabbing the sheets so hard, wave after wave of heated pleasure rocks into me from Keith’s deep thrusts. 

Suddenly he grabs my waist and I let out a startled yelp when I’m suddenly moved, before I know it my back is against the mattress and Keith’s pushing back into me from the position change. My hands immediately grab at the sheets above my head as I arch my back, my eyes fall shut as the stretch returns, I feel Keith’s breath hot on my neck like the burn of an open oven. 

“You’re always trying to take care of others before yourself.” His breath shudders as he starts to move against me, his hands gravitating down my thighs and hooking my legs around his waist as he purrs against the sensitive skin of my throat, “Why don’t you let _me_ give _you_ something nice for a change?”

My eyes fly open and stare up into Keith’s black blown gaze that’s mere inches from mine, a breathless smirk playing his lips as his hips start rocking and immediately I moan, my hands move to cup his face and desperate for something to occupy my mouth I try to pull on his shoulders down to kiss me but he resists; he keeps his arms pressed on the bed and his hips bearing down and burying himself deep in me with slow thrusts that it’s making me _shake_ it’s delicious. I manage to swallow on the dryness in my mouth as he continues going deep and slow but _goddamnit I want more, I want him to fuck me into the mattress until my legs are shaking and my eyes are rolling into the back of my head, fuck, fuck, fuck-_

“Keith, please.” I plea with a hint of desperation, my hands traveling to Keith’s hair and tugging on the fringes to incentivize him but all it does is make his hips slow down even more, his breath is as shaky as his hands grabbing the sheets and his eyes squeeze shut. I whine, rolling my hips towards him for more friction to the point I’m practically panting, “Please, _please._ ” 

Keith’s breath is shaking as hard as his arms and slowly I realize that it’s because of how much strain he’s under, I touch his shoulders and his biceps and feel him trembling to keep himself under control, to keep with the way he’s grinding his hips and pushing into me slowly. I race my hands up his chest and I feel his skin jump at the sensation and frankly… it’s intoxicating as _fuck_ , but it’s then I recognize what exactly is happening. _He’s holding back, still. Maybe… He must be worried he’s gonna accidentally hurt me._

_I’m not afraid of you._

“Let go.” I whisper desperately. Keith’s eyes open and I see nothing but black and indigo, I let out a shaky moan as he buries himself deep in me, but now I’m motivated for more, to make _him_ feel more. I curl my hands into his hair and pull it, and I mean _pull_ it, and something visibly seems to break in Keith. His eyes flutter shut and he lets out a desperate moan, his jaw slackens and his hips stutter and I know I have him in the palm of my hand. _“Let go for me, Keith.”_ I purr, nipping on his chin as his breath rattles, “Let go and _fuck me like you mean it_.” 

 _“Will.”_ Keith moans outright and loud and _sensual_ , and then he listens; he drapes himself over me, his hands grab my shoulderblades and his teeth dig into the flesh between my shoulder and my neck as his hips suddenly start thrusting into me rough and hard and immediately hot flashes burn beneath my skin, pounded into my blood and ripping a moan from someplace deep in me that I didn’t know I had. I wrap my arms around Keith’s neck and hold onto him tightly, grabbing his hair and keeping him close as he fucks me, it’s ridiculously hot, my pleasure is mounting and _my God_ it feels so _fucking good_. 

“ _Fuck,_ yes, Keith, _Keith, yes, yes, hn-!_ ” I bite my lip with a desperate moan and I feel Keith’s hands shift downward from my back, instead grabbing my hips and lifting them up closer to his and suddenly with the angle change Keith moans against my throat, it’s rough and guttural and _so fucking hot_ it’s scorching my skin. Keith nibbles on my jawline and sucks on my pulse and my head spins on an axis, I travel my hands to his back and dig my nails into his skin desperately to bring him closer and only at the last second do I consider going gentler so as not to hurt him. Keith doesn’t care, in fact his breath stutters as he moans softly and after a moment he sits up and grabs my hips, pounding into me at the new angle and immediately I’m seeing stars. 

“ _Yes_ , right there, _right there_ , _Keith,_ _y-yes._ ” I gasp, my head falling back as I bury my hands into the sheets, my eyes flutter shut as the pleasure climbs and mounts, _“Keith, please.”_ Keith’s hands splay on my hipbones and snaps his hips forward, effectively punching any and all breath out of me, it feels so good, it’s _ridiculously_ hot and what’s even better is feeling how hard he’s holding me, how _rough_ his thrusts are and how much desperation is in his movements.

 _“Will.”_ I open my eyes when I hear him, looking up and through the haze of pleasure I watch in awe as his head falls back, his lips are parted with heady moans falling out of them softly, just barely audible over the rocking of the bedframe but volume doesn’t matter to me, he’s _letting it out_ , he’s _moaning_ and it’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard in my life. Sweat clings to his chest, his shoulders, I glide my hands up his chest hungrily and I get _drunk_ off the feeling of the muscles in his stomach contracting with each mind blowing thrust, I glide them up his arms, desperately reaching his chest and I can feel his heart beat beneath the pads of my fingers, it’s hard and pounding just like he’s fucking me and _God_ . I love watching, and _feeling_ it, I love seeing him like this, unravelling and open and desperate but I don’t want to just watch, I want to taste it on my tongue. 

“Kiss me, _Keith, please kiss me._ ” I beg, his gaze snaps down to my pleading expression and immediately his lips lock mine, it’s nothing but teeth and sucking tongues and nipping, leaving me heady and dizzy and _close to sated_ . I curl my fingers in his inky hair and tug and impossible heat suffocates me when Keith’s unhindered moans spill into my mouth, his hands grab my waist and moves me against him as pleasure makes his arms shake. Each thrust is a white flash in my gaze, I’m getting close to blinded but despite it I can see his eyes clearly when they lock onto me, his lips are parted and desperation is close, he tastes like the rim of a margarita glass as I lick his lips and suck on his tongue, I’m so close, I’m so _so fucking close_.

“K-Keith, I’m close, fuck, _fuck, Keith-Keith!_ ” My moans are loud and desperate and only silenced when Keith closes the distance and kisses me so hard I’m seeing stars, he’s pounding me into the mattress, accidentally moving me along the sheets to the point I have to brace my arms on the wall overhead to keep from getting fucked into the hard surface. 

He bites my lip and moans softly, I taste nothing but cinnamon and see nothing but the violet light of constellations in his eyes as he whispers, _“Come for me.”_

My back arches and I’m racked with a full body shudder, my eyes squeeze shut and I let out a pleading moan as his lips grace my jaw, it’s burning, it’s hot and good and _his hands are on my thighs, his teeth are in my skin and his tongue and his lips and his cock fucking me senseless, oh my God-_

My mind is empty when I finish, my hands grab onto Keith’s shoulders and cling to him like a lifeline as the hot pleasure is branded into my chest and it grows hotter, burning more and more until it starts to hurt and I let out desperate whines as he fucks me through my orgasm, overstimulated and thoughtless. I feel my consciousness fade from space in time, the only thing I’m aware of is the stabbing, too much pleasure of Keith’s thrusts and his breath cascading across my features, when I open my eyes with shaky moans slipping periodically I meet his indigo gaze. His brow is pinched and he’s biting his lip, as soon as I open my eyes to meet his they squeeze shut and his hips start hitching. I can tell what’s coming, someplace where the drunken haze of ecstasy hasn’t reached recognizes it, and I know what I’ve got to do.

I barely have any strength in my limbs but I use it all to sit up and work my hips against his, Keith immediately moans into my throat and his hands grab my back desperately. My arms shake, they should’ve given out immediately but I don’t allow them too, not yet, not until he’s done, too. _“Let go.”_ I moan pitifully with Keith as he plants his forehead against mine, I push my hips against his as hard as I’m physically able to before I bare my teeth, “Wanna feel you finish for me. _Let go,_ Keith, _let go_.”

Keith’s breath stammers out of time as his hands grab my hips so tightly I’m positive they’ll bruise, I let out a shaky, overstimulated gasp when I feel his cock pulse inside me and Keith’s thrusts escalate, he presses half kisses to the side of my face as he moans in whispers, _“Will, Will, Will, Will, Will, Will-”_

I can’t hold on anymore, my arms give but Keith doesn’t stop, he thrusts harder and faster until they stutter out of time with his moans and I gasp with a shaking whine when he pulls out, I touch my forehead to his and watch him with my full attention as he finishes. His eyebrows pinch and his lips part in a desperate and rugged moan as one of his hands cup my cheek while his hips are hitching into the other’s fist, I touch his wrist with one hand while the other trails down his chest, I can feel his heart pounding hard against my touch when I feel him finish on my stomach. He takes several, shaking, rasping breaths for a few seconds as I reach up and cup his cheek, when he opens his eyes all I can see are the slivers of indigo that remain in the darkness. 

I want to say something but I’m not sure what, but he doesn’t allow me to anyway as he presses forward and kisses me. It’s sloppy and chaste, it makes my head spin as I push my fingers through his hair and cradle his face in my hands. I have nothing in my head; the streams of my thoughts have dried up and are gone without a drop of water in their place.

After a long time, seconds, years, time doesn’t exist when Keith’s kissing me, he pulls away and bumps his nose against mine, peering at me with a warm light in his eyes.

I finally find the words to speak, “Was that… Alright?” I ask sheepishly, raising an eyebrow at him and trying to recapture all the breath I’d lost since we entered the Castle.

Keith scoffs incredulously, _“Alright?”_ He echoes, cocking an eyebrow at me as he pulls away, I watch as he reaches down to the ground and grabs the closest article of clothing which happens to be my shirt, turning back to me with a _goddamn smirk_ , “That was way better than alright.” He cups my cheek and crashes his lips on mine and I melt so instantaneously that it’s frankly embarrassing, I wrap my arms around his neck and tangle my fingertips into his hair. 

I feel the material of my shirt on my lower stomach and I gasp as Keith uses it to clean up the mess remaining there. I can’t help but snicker as I pull away, mostly from straight up, pure giddiness with all the leftover ecstasy, “Wow, what a gentleman.” I joke while gesturing to my shirt in his hand, he tosses the cum covered cloth aside once he’s finished before he reaches up and leaves a kiss on my cheek with a wry smirk. 

That’s when my thoughts start up again like a long standing engine that’s been asleep for a while.

_Okay. Wow. That just happened._

_This started with an apology. I was supposed to have gone to him and apologized for being a dick to him and it led to me telling him everything, and I mean_ **_everything_ ** _, all of fears, my worries, why I kept him at an arm’s distance, and it… He told me he didn’t care about what I’d done. He thought that I was scared_ **_of_ ** _him, not_ **_for_ ** _him, he… He still likes me even after all that because he believes that I’m good, even after_ **_all that shit_ ** _I told him he thinks I’m good._

 _This is literally one of those “one thing led to another” scenarios. I just fucked Keith. Keith just fucked_ **_me_ ** _, he just fucked the everliving hell out of me and I think that that was possibly the greatest sex I’ve had in my whole life, and it isn’t because of his skills. Don’t get me wrong he has them, holy_ **_hell_ ** _he has them, but it was just so… intimate. The sex I had with Cole and Jax was absolutely nothing compared to this, I felt so safe, I_ **_feel_ ** _so safe, I felt like he could tell what I wanted and I could feel what he did and it was so mutual…_

_I got scared when his hands were on my throat. I’m still pissed at myself about that but he just… stopped. Said he wouldn’t do it again and moved on. It didn’t make anything weird or uncomfortable it was just… that was it. Is that how it’s supposed to be?_

_Jesus Christ, after all the silence, the internal turmoil and beating the shit out of myself for how I felt about Keith… is this it? Is it over now? Am I allowed to feel like this?_

“That didn’t take long.” Keith smirks and I find myself blinking out of my thoughts to look at him with confusion. He cups my cheek, his lips brush mine and it makes my heart pound in my chest as he whispers, “I can see it. You’re already overthinking it.”

I purse my lips and give him an indignant expression, “Am not!” Keith cocks an eyebrow at me in disbelief and I find myself biting my lip sheepishly in response, “... Okay maybe a little.” Keith sits up and grabs his underwear from the ground before tossing mine at me, he stands to put it back on as I speak, “I dunno, I hate to be that guy like, immediately after but I just-” My voice stalls when I see Keith’s back, specifically the red streaks under and along his shoulderblades and it immediately makes my body heat spike, even more so when Keith turns back to look at me with a raised eyebrow and I see the marks on his neck, his shoulders, red bite marks and purple lovebites stand out on the fairness of his skin like drops of blood in the snow. _Shit. Those are gonna be hard to hide. Lucky for him his jacket has that ugly fucking collar, that’ll do the trick._

I swallow and shift, pulling my boxers back on and my immediate reaction is to get the rest of my clothes on, get ready to leave, but before I can Keith pushes on my shoulder gently, I sit back down on his bed with wide eyes as he maneuvers me back. I follow his directed movements, my hands instinctively reach up to touch his arms as he pushes me onto the pillows, once there he spreads my legs and lies comfortably between them, folding his arms on my chest and facing me fully and doesn’t care to shift, like a cat he’s perfectly content to stay where he is. My heart swells in my throat with emotion I don’t understand as Keith reaches out a hand and touches my cheek, his fingertips brushing over my lips rather intoxicatingly before he murmurs, “You were saying?”

I shake my head a bit and playfully nip at his finger, a genuine, soft smile stretching across my face, “You make it hard to think.” 

The playful light in Keith’s eyes diminishes slightly to something more serious, the color in the darkness like the night sky before dawn as his graces his thumb on my bottom lip, _he seems to like doing that_. He rumbles in a soft voice, “Good.” 

I shiver, watching him for a long moment before I gather the coherency to _breathe_ again, it takes even longer for me to remember how to think. _“Christ.”_ I huff with a soft laugh as Keith’s hand withdraws from my face, settling back under him to support his smirking head as I try to regather the thoughts Keith grabbed and scattered over the bedsheets, “I was just gonna ask… Like…” I bite my lip, resting a hand on Keith’s arm while the other glides across his features, brushing his bangs from his eyes as I murmur, “What are we, now? Like… Are we still friends? More than friends? Was this a one time thing, or…?”

Keith raises an eyebrow at me and flickers his gaze across my features, I wonder if I should feel self conscious as he answers, “What? Do you think we need a label?”

“Okay, so it’s a _we_ , I feel like that’s a good start.” I jest with a shy smile, biting my lip with an awkward laugh before I shake my head, “I mean… I just wanna know what you expect from me. What you want from me, what you want to get out of… you know. Us. Is there an us?”

Keith tilts his head to the side in thought, lacing his fingers under his chin as he stares into my eyes and the simple action acts like a crashing wave, washing my thoughts aside and leaving nothing but the bare bones of how I feel which is _warm_ and _safe_ and… happy. “I don’t want to _get anything_ out of you, Will.” Keith murmurs simply, his fingertips unlace and tap on my chest, lingering on the tattoo over my chest before he continues, “But I think I understand what you mean. I uh… I definitely don’t want this to be the last time.” He shifts forward a bit and kisses my chin, inexplicable warmth sparks from the kiss and bolts all the way down to my toes, I sit up a bit more and plant my feet on the surface of his bad and loosely hook them on Keith’s legs where he lays between mine, it’s such an _intimate_ yet surprisingly comfortable position it makes my cheeks flush. “I don’t want to just have sex with you, either.” Keith continues, he reaches a hand up plays with a strand of hair that falls in my eyes as he speaks with a pensive expression, “Err, well, I’m not saying I _don’t_ want to anymore, because _that’s_ a lie… but I also want more than that because… you’re more than that. I want to be a part of all of you.” He furrows his eyebrows as he speaks, he lets out a slightly frustrated breath through his nose before he grumbles, “Does that make sense?”

I open my mouth and close it, staring at him, gaping like a fish out of water. He watches me with a raised eyebrow and after a moment he _fucking smirks_ , “Did I just break you?”

My entire face burns red but a smile finds its way to my face, I cup his face in my hands tenderly and pull him in to see if I still can I kiss him. He not only allows for it he kisses me back, shifting upwards more until he’s hovering over me again and it’s so, _so fucking delicious_. 

What’s better, however, is the feeling that this isn’t the last time. This is just one more time, I kissed him before, I can kiss him again… maybe I can kiss him tomorrow, the day after that… _These are dangerous thoughts to have._

I pull away after a moment and let out a breathless laugh, my face still remains a bright red as I speak, “I’d really like that, too. Like, a lot. I’ve… that’s kind of one of the reasons, one of the _hundreds_ of reasons why I got nervous when you kissed me before ‘cause I was worried that if we fucked and you got what you wanted you would-”

Keith touches his fingertips to my lips, “Shh.” I blink at him with wide eyes, swallowing on the sudden dry lump in my throat as he drops his hand back to my chest and presses a bare kiss against my lips. My eyes fall shut and as I move to chase after him for more he keeps me pinned down by his arms. I narrow my eyes at him accusingly and he responds by flashing me a crooked smirk, a playful light in his indigo eyes. Once I’ve settled his expression turns soft, and his tone shifts to be more serious, “I told you I’m not going anywhere. I meant it.”

Emotion swells in my throat as I stare at him. His hair is in wild, inky swirls, falling over his eyes and curling around his throat and the back of his neck, his skin’s like snow and the marks I left upon him are like flowers in spring that sprung forth by my hand - or, rather, teeth - and his lips are reddened from the abuse they’ve sustained, beautiful and soft… like him. A side of him I kind of always knew was there ever since the day he grabbed my arm when I started shaking on the bridge of the Castle, but one I never truly witnessed in a manner so open and obvious before me now. A side I brought out, a side he’s willing to show me. _A side I’m honored to see_.

“I’m not going anywhere, either.” I murmur softly, cupping his cheek and running my thumb beneath the deep violets and grays of his eyes that glimmer like the depths of space in the minimal light. “There’s no backing out now, Keith.” I joke, smiling brightly as I cock a teasing eyebrow at him, “You’re stuck with me.”

Keith smiles, his gaze flickers across my features as he rumbles in a voice that’s low and husky, “Good.” 

He leans in and kisses me again and my thoughts die out; all I can see is violet and indigo, and all I can taste is cinnamon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :0)  
> I have no excuse.  
> Do enjoy the softness while it lasts...


	14. Coming Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One thing led to another. Will can't even believe that it's happened, he didn't know how it came to it but he doesn't regret a single bit of the night prior, when the Paladins returned to Olkarion to begin the final stages of the plan to take down Zarkon. He thought the biggest revelation he had was the realization that there was an "after" to consider, a place beyond the now, which is hard for him to think about because that "now" is a place that Will never wants to leave. He's never been so closely bonded to the present moment, not even at camp, not even with his field hockey team, never.   
> He never wants it to end, now that he has these bonds it's impossible for him to let them go, not that he wants to. Trauma bonding is a hell of a thing.   
> But now, with his recent "revelations" with Keith, there's a fresh barrier he's placed between himself and the rest of the team, one he isn't sure about the best route to overcome.   
> Sometimes when you hesitate and hesitate at the cliff's edge, the universe will push you off for you.   
> And Will's on the precipice, waiting to jump.

I don’t know at what point it was that I fell asleep, all I know is I wake up surrounded in all encompassing warmth. I open my eyes slowly, yawning with a slight stretch when I realize there are arms draped over me, looped under mine, a pale hand holds onto the front of my chest. Body heat radiates from behind me, I feel slow, even breath on the back of my neck and as I blink sleepily at the wall against the bed in front of me I realize where I am, the day’s events prior envelop me in heat. 

_ Oh my God. That happened. That wasn’t a dream. This isn’t a dream. _

_ I’m still in Keith’s room, then. Wow. That happened. He let me stay here? I don’t even remember falling asleep, we were kissing and… I guess I must’ve clonked out then. Makes sense, that was almost literally mind blowing, I can’t believe I was even able to retain consciousness afterwards at all.  _

Initially my first worry is that I’d overstayed my welcome, that Keith didn’t wanna wake me up so he just let me stay, but with his arms wrapped around me, I can feel his whole body pressed against my back, his legs tangled into mine, a part of me shivers at the thought that maybe he wanted me to stay.  _ Regardless of the reasons, I’m gonna ride this out, there’s no way I’m pulling out of this unless Zarkon himself knocked on the door.  _

I relax against his chest and close my eyes again, burying myself deeper under the covers until I’m basically completely submerged beneath them, the warmth spreads through every drop of blood as I rest my hand over his that hugs me to his chest. He doesn’t even budge, he’s fast asleep and this makes me smile a bit to myself as I trail my thumb along the back of his hand. It’s so weird to see him not wearing any gloves, and now that I’m able to touch them without any inhibitions I feel the scars on his knuckles, tough, worn, and aged, almost more like callouses. I run my fingertips over them, memorizing the curves, the ones on his first two knuckles are larger and thicker than the ones on the other two on his ring fingers and pinkies, a part of me chills at the thought of how he may have gotten them. I press his hand flat against my chest with my own, holding him close as I press my back against him more until his bare chest is flush against my back. My thoughts are quiet. Everything is quiet. All I feel or care to feel is his breathing rising and falling in time with mine.

I close my eyes and soak in the proximity and that’s when there’s a loud knock on the door followed by a crisp bark, “Everybody up!” Keith and I immediately jolt upright and I hear a thud as Keith whirls about, his feet already planted on the ground as Shiro calls, “We’ve got a lot of work today and not a lot of time to do it!” 

Keith lets out a hard breath, I look over at him with wide eyes as he shakes his head and comes to his senses. His back is to me and as he touches the holographic panel by his bed to turn on the light I can see the red marks on his shoulderblades perfectly, still just as evident as they were last night. He turns over his shoulder to look at me where his hands are planted on the bed surface; his expression is open and slightly confused, after a moment I wonder if I should’ve left a long time ago right as he suddenly smirks, “Oh, wow.” I blink stupidly at him for a solid minute before he turns back to face me fully, his fingertips brush the side of my neck and then trail down my shoulder as he murmurs, “I didn’t realize I bit so hard.” His fingertips tap on the crook of my shoulder and I feel it, it’s sensitive and I can feel the dull sting from the touch but I can’t find it in me to even wince, I’m flooded with too much warmth.

Most of which is from the immediate embarrassment that flushes my face, I touch his wrist on my neck briefly before tapping on it with my forefinger, “And who’s to blame for that? Besides, speak for yourself. And you’re way lighter than me, yours are like wine on snow.” I jest with a wicked grin as I reach out and caress a bitten galaxy on the side of his neck next to his pulse, it’s hidden in the shadows of his hair. “And you should  _ see _ your back.” 

Keith cocks an eyebrow, “Yeah?” He reaches around and touches his shoulders, we both jump in unison when we hear Lance’s voice outside,  _ “Five more minutes?”  _

Sudden, heart clenching worry seizes my hands as Keith turns back to me, I grab my ankles as I look at him with wide eyes and mutter, “Keith, what the hell are we gonna tell the others?” 

Keith raises an eyebrow at me, he doesn’t seem nearly as stressed as I am as he stands up, “I dunno. What do you wanna tell them?”

I blink, perplexed as I wring my hands in my lap, “Well,” I start off, biting my lip as Keith turns his back on me to rifle through his dresser, “They’re gonna notice if I walk out of here with you. Especially since I can’t fuckin’ put my  _ shirt  _ back on, thanks for that, by the way.” I gesture to it where Keith threw it aside last night in a purely joking tone, he glances back at me without a change in expression as I sigh, “Ah, sorry. I don’t know. I’m just nervous, I guess, I don’t know how they’re gonna react. Well, honestly I don’t think they’re gonna be pissed about it or anything, and I don’t want to  _ hide  _ it from them. Frankly, I wanna scream it from the mountaintop like a gay prophet.” I chew on my lip with a slightly playful smirk, my heart sings when I hear Keith snicker as he pulls on a red shirt on over his head before I continue in a more serious tone, “But I don’t want you to get wigged out or uncomfortable if the others start teasing or something either. I know what you said last night about this not being a one time thing and I don’t wanna jeopardize that by-” 

Keith shakes his head with a slight smirk that sends an arrow straight through my chest as he turns back in my direction, he reaches down and cups my cheek and my words immediately die on my lips when he kisses me. It’s gentle and the cinnamon is masked in morning breath but I could not care less because it’s a sudden reminder that last night  _ happened _ . It wasn’t just a dream,  _ and Keith’s feelings haven’t changed _ . When he pulls away I’m still left pretty dizzy, and it only gets worse when Keith fucking  _ smirks _ again, “You really never stop thinking, do you?” I shoot him a light hearted glare as he trails his thumb across my bottom lip before he pulls away, “They could say whatever they like, nothing’s gonna change how I feel about you.” 

I look at him incredulously as my heart stops beating, Keith grabs a flight suit from in his drawers and starts tugging it on like he didn’t just single handedly slay me. Before I can move or even breathe I have an entire stroke when there’s another knock on Keith’s door, this time I hear Shiro’s voice in a softer tone, “Hey, Keith, you in there?” 

“Go on without me, I’ll catch up.” Keith calls in response without turning around, moving to where his armor sits on the floor, almost hidden against the wall. 

“Alright… you doing okay?” Shiro’s muted voice echoes in the room and when I glance over at Keith’s back to see him pulling his boots on a wicked idea forms in my mind. I act without a single goddamn thought going into it. 

“He’s fine!” I call back in response. Keith whirls around and looks at me with wide eyes and I immediately look back at him with a matching gaze as deadly silence hovers outside his door.  _ Oh no.  _

_ That may have been a stupid decision. _

After a moment I hear a soft sigh against the door,  _ “Fucking finally.”  _ I touch my fingers to my lips to suppress whatever  _ the fuck _ kind of noise is bubbling at the base of my throat as Shiro speaks again in a completely normal, Shiro fashion, like he didn’t just say fuck for the first time since I’ve known him, “Meet us up at the dining hall whenever you’re ready.” 

The sound of boots retreat from the doorway and I look over at Keith with wide eyes as he looks back at me, and for a minute all is silent. 

“... Should I not have done that?” I ask sheepishly, looking at him with a nervous lilt in my voice. 

Keith looks at me, looks at the door, before he breaks out in a loud and sudden laugh, a full body laugh that makes me shiver just to look at it’s so  _ goddamn cute what the fuck _ . He recovers after a few moments, taking several breaths before he’s able to keep getting dressed in his armor again without hinderance, “No, it’s fine, that was just… surprising.”

I rub the back of my neck sheepishly, “Well hey, I like to keep you on their toes.” I stand up with a stretch to get dressed and immediately my back and thighs seize when my ass  _ aches _ , I gasp sharply and brace a hand on the wall as the sharp soreness pulses all the way to my fingertips.  _ Oh. Jesus Christ. What the fuck?- Oh. That’s right. Oh God,  _ **_ow_ ** _. _

Keith glances over at me when he hears the pent up breath I accidentally exhaled once he’s pulled his chestplate on and visibly starts, he whirls around to approach and both of his hands grasp my hips as he looks at me with worry glinting in his dark iron gaze, “You okay?” 

I flush in immediate embarrassment, waving him off dismissively as I flicker my gaze to the floor, “Yeah, yeah, sorry. Just uh… sore.” 

“Oh.” Keith’s eyebrows furrow as he flickers his expression across my form like he’s scanning for injuries, a set in his jaw as he frowns slightly.

I reach out to him and cup his face in both of my hands, pulling his gaze back to mine as I press a kiss against the edge of his lips, “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t give me that long face.” 

Keith huffs with a sudden dust of crimson dusting his cheeks as his gaze flickers down towards my chest, “I didn’t hurt you?” He asks with a sheepish expression, his eyes are black beneath the shadow of his bangs and glint with nerves.  _ God, how the hell are you so sweet? _

“No.” I answer immediately and resolutely, brushing his bangs from his eyes before smirking wickedly, “That’s just what happens when you have sex without lube; nothing to be done about it.” I tap the side of his neck thoughtfully, brushing my fingertips on where I know a sharp indentation of teeth in the crook of his neck lies beneath his flight suit before I pull away, moving a tad slowly because  _ Jesus Christ _ , I feel like Keith had taken a broom and just beat it against my lower back instead of fucking me until I was a begging mess. Keith purses his lips but otherwise doesn’t reply, I clear my throat to push the thoughts aside, grabbing my pants from the floor and pulling them on before slipping on my shoes. I find my stone on the floor next to the abandoned clothes and when I reach down and pick it up I’m swarmed with a powerful bout of energy, I almost physically stagger. A soft white light pulses for a moment like a heartbeat before it diminishes, I take a deep breath as I accomodate for the power surge and then pull my stone over my head and let it fall to my chest. It feels right, as soon as it’s back it’s like I have a piece of myself returned to me, one that I didn’t realize I was missing until now. 

I let out a breath, walking over and picking up my shirt where it was thrown against the wall and find that it not only sticks to itself in awkward places but it  _ reeks _ of sex, just holding it makes me feel dirty. “Did you  _ really  _ have to use  _ my _ shirt?” I grumble with a cocked eyebrow in his direction as he pulls on his gauntlets. 

Keith raises an eyebrow over at me and  _ smirks _ , “Is complaining all you do?” 

I almost have to sit, his damn expression is so attractive.  _ I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smirk this much before and it’s such a double edged sword, I’m physically gonna give out if he does that again, he has no fucking right to make me feel so weak like this. _

I flounder only briefly before I’m able to recover, but once I do I flash him a wink with my tongue between my teeth, “No. Fortunately I have plenty of additional features.” Keith meets my gaze and I notice the tips of his ears start to turn scarlet, I can’t help but grin wickedly in victory,  _ ha, see, how do  _ **_you_ ** _ like it? _ I give him a teasing salute once I’ve got my stuff together, turning my back on him as I walk out of his room, “See you at breakfast.” 

Although I talk a load of shit, I’m  _ immeasurably  _ grateful there’s no one in the hallway to witness me make the walk of shame across the hall to my room. I hurry to the shower once I’m there, at least as fast as I’m able to with the groaning ache of the soreness from above the back of my knees and to the middle of my back.  _ Jesus Christ, I think it’s just been a hot minute since I got laid like that because I do not remember being this sore before. At least sore in a good way like this.  _ I rush through a shower, when I get out I move to walk out of the bathroom with a slow gait while towel drying my hair,  _ goddamnit Keith _ , but I pause when I see my reflection in a passing mirror. Immediately I remember the purple blooms in Keith’s throat that are perfectly hidden by the neck of his flight suit and his hair, well, almost hidden save for the one by his pulse and internally curious I plant my hands on the countertop and tilt my head from side to side, examining my reflection. 

The darkest hickey is where my shoulder meets my neck on my left side, prodding the bruise it fills me with a hot flash of self satisfaction, a bit diminished by the perpetual ache below my lower back.  _ I don’t think that I will be able to do that without lube again. But where the fuck am I supposed to get that in space? I feel like condoms are straight up out of the question, lube or something like it will be easier to find than a fucking condom, like for real, I wonder what are the odds that we’ll come across aliens with phallic sex organs, never the less the idea and capability of making a condom- ugh. Anyway like it matters, it’s bold of me to assume that I’ll be able to have any sex for at least two days, like holy fuck, even if I had lube and all the time in the world I’d still probably rip like a plastic bag.  _

I shake my head and shudder in horror at the thought, instead running my hands through my hair and lifting my chin to examine my jaw again and that’s when I see the red mark just below my ear; it’s light enough that it isn’t immediately noticeable, but downside is that it’ll be more than visible above my flight suit because it’s out in the open, nowhere near hidden by the shadow of my jaw or otherwise.  _ Fuck.  _

_ Well, what’re the odds that anyone will notice? No one’s gonna be looking so it’ll be fine. Well, except maybe Shiro will be. This is so unfair, Keith’s skin is fairer than mine and I  _ **_definitely_ ** _ kissed and bit his neck far more often than he to me but I’m the one that’s got the visible lovebite. _

I let out a sigh as I take a step away from the counter.  _ That bitch. _

I shake my head and head back to my room quickly, getting my armor on from there before I head to the dining room in record time because I don’t want to take too much advantage of the small bubble Shiro gave Keith and I to get ready. In this time my thoughts pick themselves up and dust themselves off where they’d gotten put aside for… several hours, at least, they’re lukewarm and sluggish like they were in hibernation. 

_ Okay. Maybe what I did calling out to Shiro in Keith’s room was a bit impulsive and maybe not the best idea. Maybe. I don’t know. That does beg the question: is there even a good way to tell the others about this? “Oh hey guys, so Keith and I are a thing now, I have no idea what that thing is, it’s just a good thing and a thing that resulted in us fucking, we are probably gonna keep doing it too but don’t worry it’s not a big deal or anything!”  _

_ Pidge is gonna lose her fucking mind. I can just feel it. Hunk too, but I don’t know in what manner that will be. Lance… I’ve no fucking clue what he’ll do. Probably shriek. Apparently Shiro’s reaction is “fucking finally” and that’s honest to God the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard him say in my life. I had no idea he even knew that fuck could be a part of his vocabulary. I wonder how he’s feeling now, actually. I wonder if he’s told or gonna tell the others… No, I doubt it, he would wait for Keith or I to say something… but I don’t think Keith will. He’s reserved, unless they ask he’s not gonna take initiative to tell them because why would he do that, so it’s probably gonna have to be me.  _

_ But I do not wanna.  _

_ Maybe I’m just overthinking this. Maybe I don’t need to like, come out or something, maybe they’ll figure it out? Maybe I can just be like Keith and wait until someone asks or something, act like normal. I mean, the whole fucking ship knew that Keith and I liked each other before we did so maybe it doesn’t need to be a discussion. Maybe this isn’t even something that’s that big of a deal that we need to talk to the team about it, we had sex, so what? We probably will have sex later, too, ‘cause there is no way in  _ **_hell_ ** _ I’m letting that go, and… Keith did say he wasn’t in it just for that. He said he wants to “be a part of all of me.” I don’t know what he means when he said that to me last night.  _

_ In all honesty, that kind of sounds like we’re dating now. _

My heart slams into my throat and my breath rattles.  _ Oh fucking hell. I need to think about this in depth at another time, after I confirm it with Keith, mostly. But until then I’m gonna keep to myself, I don’t wanna get the group involved until I’ve got it straightened out. No pun intended. But it doesn’t have to be weird, and it’s not a secret, just gonna… keep it on the down low. That’s not weird, right? That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. _

I make it to the dining room and am immediately met with loud shouts, “-Or I  _ swear  _ you’ll regret the day you were born, McClain!” Pidge is brandishing a spoon with an aggressive point in Lance’s direction where he sits across from her with a shit eating grin, immediately I hitch in the doorway in case I get caught in the midst of a battle. Shiro’s sitting at the head of the table with Keith next to him, they look so comically unchanged and no different than usual that internally I wonder at what must be going on in their heads, specifically  _ Shiro’s  _ head.  _ He’s basically Keith’s big brother. I haven’t considered this until just now but do I need to like… have his permission, or something? I don’t fucking know, I doubt it, what even kind of question is that, why am I even thinking that that would be necessary? Hell, Shiro was the one who told me to go after Keith so I’m gonna call that as a stamp of approval.  _

Hunk, sitting next to Pidge, rolls his head back with a loud groan, “Guys, it’s  _ way  _ too early for you to be fighting already, my head still hurts, can we just have  _ one quiet breakfast  _ for  _ once- _ ” He pauses when he notices me and smiles sheepishly, “Oh, morning, Will! You uh… you sleep good?” 

My heart leaps to my throat as the room turns to look at me.  _ Alright, don’t panic, there is nothing amiss here, nothing at all.  _ I immediately flash a smile as I round the chairs to grab some food goo from a bowl in the middle of the table, “Can’t complain. How about y’all?” I move and sit next to Lance and immediately my ass  _ hurts _ , it takes all the power and self control I have to not react but I can’t control when I wince. 

Fortunately no one seems to notice. “Would’ve slept longer if it weren’t for Lance’s  _ brilliant  _ idea to go up to the capitol building.” Pidge grumbles, throwing an accusatory glance in his direction. 

Lance rolls his eyes and blows a raspberry, “We wouldn’t have been up there so long if you hadn’t spent an hour at the engineering lab!”

I’m distracted by the clatter of a spoon hitting a bowl, when I look over I see Keith’s hand is pressed to the side of his neck in a motion that appears carefully constructed to be casual, he’s looking down at his empty bowl like it personally wronged him and his other fist is curled into a fist around his spoon. When he feels me looking at him he meets my gaze, I raise an eyebrow,  _ are you good? _ But he doesn’t do anything other than look away again with a sudden scarlet blooming across his face; it’s, frankly,  _ fucking adorable _ , but the best thing about the sight I’m witnessing is the absolutely  _ wicked  _ grin on Shiro’s face next to him, he looks smug and self righteous like a kid who was just told “fine, you’re right” for the first time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened.  _ So apparently not  _ **_all_ ** _ of his hickeys are hidden.  _ Although I feel like I should probably be embarrassed instead I’m filled with a bit of lukewarm satisfaction; it’s like  _ yes, I did that, I sucked the life out of him until he was pleading for more, and it was the greatest sight I’ve ever witnessed. _

“-doing last night anyway?” I blink when Lance turns towards me, his eyebrow arches as his sea blue eyes rake across my features. 

I flounder and swallow, “Sorry, was spaced out, what’d you ask?” 

“I asked what you were doing last night.” Lance continues, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, “Shiro said you had already gone off somewhere, where’d you go?” 

_ Alright, the correct answer here is not “Back to the castle to get fucked by Keith”, so I need something else. Ah, yes, my time as come, I’ve been training for this moment, thanks Mom and Dad.  _ I shrug lackadaisically as I flicker my gaze to my hands, occupying myself by spooning some goo into my mouth and speaking in a dismissive tone, “I went to bed. In case you forgot I had to hold off that ro-beast all by myself yesterday before y’all showed up.” 

“Oh. Right.” Hunk shudders, shaking his head as he hugs himself with a pout, “Ugh, that was terrible.” This line of thought seems to spark something in him as he sits more upright and looks over at Shiro pleadingly, “Does that mean we can get a light pass on training today? Maaaaybe we can go and see some more of the city instead? You know, it’s a good idea to get to know our allies well, and stuff, and… team bonding…?”

I follow Hunk’s gaze to Shiro and immediately balk when I see him already looking at me with such a self satisfied smirk that it sends a shock of heat up to my face.  _ Jesus Christ, Shiro, don’t you dare.  _ As soon as I spot the expression it passes, Shiro shifts his gaze to the rest of the team with a very Shiro, very serious look, “We’ve got to get ready for when we take on Zarkon in a few days. As soon as the teludav is done it’s game time, and we need to be prepared for when that happens.” He stands up, his prosthetic hand pressed on the table as he speaks, “Get to your lions.” 

Hunk groans dramatically, lolling his head backwards as the others at the table rises, Lance pats him on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, Hunk! It’ll be fun, if we can impress all the Olkari with our sick skills then maybe they’ll throw us a parade before we leave!” I stand as  _ perfectly normal  _ as I can, but  _ God  _ is it hard.

“It’s not about the glory, Lance. We have to train to take down Zarkon.” Keith huffs in a serious manner as he takes up stride with him when we walk as a cluster out of the dining room and towards the hangers. 

Lance flashes Keith a narrow eyed look, “Oh come on, not even  _ you  _ could complain about a parade-” Lance abruptly stops, an eyebrow raising. He abruptly reaches over and pokes Keith’s neck. 

Keith starts and looks over at Lance with an incredulous frown, clapping his hand over his neck as he shoots Lance a glare, “What’re you doing?” 

Lance stares at Keith for a long time, my stomach does somersaults throughout my chest as Lance’s eyes widen, “... Keith, don’t freak out,” He begins, holding his hands up like he’s about to tame a wild beast, “... But I think you might be turning Galra.” 

Keith blinks once, twice, “I’m already Galra, Lance.” 

“No, no, I mean,  _ turning  _ Galra.” Lance reaches over again and tries to poke at Keith’s neck again only for Keith to smack his hands away with a set in his brow, “Would you quit?” Keith growls with a sharp glare. 

“I’m just trying to help!” Lance proclaims, he goes in for another swipe at Keith who dodges out of the way when we enter the hanger. 

“Stow it, you two. We’ve got work to do, it’s time to get focused.” Shiro chastises, effectively quelling the pair, but I can clearly see the light of amusement in his gaze, one that I never would’ve noticed was there if I didn’t think to look. Keith glances over at me accusingly and I have to bite my lip to disguise the bubbling laugh that’s threatening to burst forth.  _ Turning Galra, huh? Oh Lance. Well bonus benefit is that that’s a hell of an excuse if I ever heard one. _

I head into my hanger and as soon as I walk through the teeth of my lion the power inside flares to life, I feel like I just walked onto a thundercloud there’s so much…  _ energy  _ coursing around me.  _ Has it always felt like this? Or did I just go without my stone, and without piloting her, for so long that now I notice a difference? I feel like that’s most likely the case.  _ I sink into my seat with a curled nose but I find that it’s a lot less painful than it was back at the dining room, it’s more like a powerful ache rather than a downright stab. Raising an eyebrow I look down and see the White Lion’s stone’s light under my chestplate, as soft as moonlight reflecting on the darkblack of my flight suit. 

_ Wow. Thanks, Silver, what a twist.  _

_ Is it wrong that my first reaction to Silver healing me is “Hooray, I can have sex with Keith again sooner than I thought!”? _

_ Probably. _

I pull on my helmet as Shiro’s voice comes over the com, “Meet up in the outer hemisphere when you’re ready. The Olkari have agreed to use their planetary defensive systems to help us with our training for today, they need to be tested in case any of Zarkon’s Galra show up. Avoid dealing any damage to their machines if you can. We don’t want to make their job working on the teludav any more difficult by also having them repair their defenses.”   
“ _ Oh no _ , not more defense system checks!” Hunk laments as I open my hanger door, guiding my lion out and into the daylight of Olkarion. 

The sunlight leaves beams of gold along the city, casting it in brilliant hues of jade like the heart of a treasure trove, the trees beyond are scarlet and burnt orange like a fall holiday basket and the skies are a bright blue, tinted in rose from the ending beams of the dawning sun. Needless to say it’s  _ stunning _ . 

“Wow.” I whisper in awe, hesitating in the doorway of my hanger as I simply absorb the scene, “This is  _ beautiful _ .” 

“I know, right?” Pidge replies wistfully, “The flow from building to skyscraper is so smooth and transitionless, architects back on Earth would go  _ insane  _ over it.” 

I snort under my breath as I snap out of it, engaging my lion’s thrusters and taking off into the air, leaving the planet surface behind right as Lance retorts, “I think he was talking about the sunrise, Pidge.” 

“Oh.” Pidge verbally pouts in dismay before she grumbles, “Nevermind then, I guess.”

“I think the city’s nice, Pidge!” Hunk offers with a charismatic, amiable tone, to which Pidge blows him a raspberry. 

“Alright guys, let’s focus.” Shiro calls our attention to him as I leave the atmosphere behind, the skies grow less and less blue, deepening and growing darker and my cabin begins to rattle slightly until I’ve left Olkarion’s gravity behind, plunging into the eternal darkness of space. The stars are stunning, millions upon millions of folds laid out before me and it fills me with a sense of wonder but also a pit of unsettled anxiety because it shows just how  _ huge  _ the universe is, insurmountably large to the point that the stars I see number the galaxies and that’s what blows my mind  _ and  _ makes me feel as small as a molecule. Which I sort of am, in the grand scheme of things. 

I spot Shiro a fair ways off, I make my way over with the others, moving to fall in formation with him as he glides through space in an orbit around Olkarion far below, a olive green and crimson red sphere hanging in empty space with a huge mass of mountains around its middle like a belt.

“So what’s the goal here?” Lance asks after a few beats of silence as we line up behind Shiro, all I can hear outside of our coms is the steady hum of my lion’s thrusters in her paws radiating within the cabin. 

_ “Survive.”  _ Pidge drones in a purposefully dark tone, I can almost feel her wicked grin from over the com. 

“First we’re gonna be practicing our evasive maneuvers when we’re being attacked on multiple fronts.” Shiro replies curtly in a commanding tone, “Then we’re gonna form Voltron while being attacked so we don’t encounter a problem like we did with the last ro-beast.”

“Ah man.” Hunk lets out a low, pent up breath before he groans, “OKAY.” 

I raise an eyebrow and murmur affectionately, “You alright there, big guy?”

“Yeah, just really not looking forward to probably getting hurt now with this whole stone connection thingy.” He mumbles with a plaintive, pouting tone. 

“You’ll be fine, man, I believe in you.” Lance offers with an encouraging lilt and a sarcastic edge. 

Hunk huffs, “Well that makes one of us!” 

“Greetings Paladins, the defense systems are ready when you are.” I start when I hear Ryner’s voice over the com system, causing me to blink for several seconds. 

“We’re ready.” Shiro verbally nods in return and I watch as the Black Lion peels outward away from the planet, twisting to face it with a smooth rotation and I follow. I try to move my lion in the same round about way that Shiro did but it just leaves me spinning, it feels like when you try to do a flip underwater for the first time, I lose all sense of direction and when I finally look up again I realize I’m facing the wrong way. I turn my lion back around quickly, hoping the others don’t notice as my face burns in embarrassment,  _ fool me once for trying to do some fancy shmancy flying shit _ .

“... Will, have you had friend juice or something?” Lance snickers after a moment, making my face erupt scarlet, “Or are you purposefully doing that?”

“Shut up, I’m not a pilot!” I snap back with a frustrated huff, righting my grip on the controls, “Keep talking shit and I’ll find a way to drop you just like back on Arus.” 

Before Lance gets the opportunity to retaliate, sudden bolts of olive light zoom off of Olkarion’s surface and towards us. When they get closer I can see now that they are what eerily like Galra drones, save the metal is forest green; the change in color does nothing, however, because they are  _ just as difficult  _ as violet drones to spot in the darkness of space. Lime green lasers zap towards us and immediately we break formation in evasive maneuvers, I duck beneath the Yellow Lion as Hunk makes a noise of fear as the attacking drones swarm. “Sorry but did you say we can’t destroy these? Or can we? I don’t remember!” 

I duck beneath a drone as it barrels towards me and narrowly avoid a shot as I twist my lion in the air backwards, engaging full thrusters to keep ahead of the drones fire as Ryner’s voice suddenly comes over the com once more, “You may. These drones are leftover from Galra occupation.”

“Oh well that’s good,” Lance suddenly huffs, “‘Cause I just accidentally destroyed a few.”

“ _ ‘Accidentally’ _ he says.” Pidge snickers in response as I engage my lion’s lance, “I saw you use your jawblade!” 

“It was self defense!” Lance cries indignantly. Lime lasers blast in my peripheral, I look out the back camera on the left side to see a pair of drones chasing after me. With the lance activated I grit my teeth and yank on the controls, doubling back with an overhead roll and slash the blades through the drones with a twist of my lion’s head.  _ Oh man, that felt kinda cool. _

As I balance myself out with delicate changes in the direction of my thrusters I hear Pidge call out, “I can’t shake these guys!”

“I’ve got you covered.” Keith states, I look over to my left and see the Red Lion ripping its jawblade through a trio of drones who were chasing down the Green Lion in the other direction, Pidge lets out a relieved breath, “Back at you, three o’clock low!” 

“Got ‘em.” Keith replies but I don’t get the chance to watch them as fresh drones attack from my left, as I dodge I feel a painful sting in my shoulder from a shot when I roll through the air. As I right myself I twist to engage my lion’s laser only to see they’re already destroyed, the Black Lion zooms by like a shadow among the stars.

“Thanks, Shiro!” I call, pressing through space to get clear of the wreckage. When I look up I see Olkarion, but more specifically the movement on the mountain ranges. Massive pylons rise from within their surface, I hadn’t noticed them before but do now because they’re glowing bright green; lime colored lasers from these pylons zoom towards a focal point about the size of the teludav ring hovering in its atmosphere and with a sudden, powerful blast a massive laser the size of my lion rips through space towards us, I drop hard on the controls in avoidance and accidentally collide head on with a drone, sending it flying through space with a crater in its face.  _ Huh, that was satisfying. Maybe that’s why Hunk headbutts stuff so much.  _

“Whoa, what was  _ that?! _ ” Lance yelps, “That beam almost tore me and my lion in half!”

“Oh  _ wow!  _ They have a planetary ion cannon!” Pidge gasps with a starry tone,  _ “That’s ingenious!”  _

“Yeah, except it tried to  _ kill us! _ ” Hunk shrieks with tangible anxiety.

“Ryner diminished power to all their defenses for this exercise so the lions will take no permanent or irreversible damage.” Shiro states sternly in response as I duck and roll beneath a drone, slicing it up the middle with my lion’s lance as I move.  _ Woo, did anyone see that? That was fucking awesome! Okay, guess that makes up for that embarrassment earlier. _

“What about me? I don’t want any permanent or irreversible damage either!” Hunk cries with a note of fear. 

 Shiro pays him no mind as he barks, “Alright team, on me!” I twist my lion about in search for the Black Lion but I spot Lance first, peeling by at breakneck speed with a drone hot on his tail. I give chase, snatching the drone in my lion’s teeth and crushing it in her jaws before I spot the others getting in formation. I head straight into my spot, but as soon as we’re close the pylons on Olkarion’s mountains flare in preparation to fire once more, before I can even extend my essences out to the others we have to scatter right when cannon blast pulses through the empty space where we just were. 

“We can’t get in close without getting blasted!” Keith growls in frustration as a series of drones fly onto our position, firing off so many shots that all I can do is dodge them while also trying not to crash into the others as we swirl in space like stew. 

“Just stay in close, when we have an opening form Voltron!” Shiro commands in reply. I see the Green Lion’s lasers fire and obliterate a drone as the Yellow Lion crashes through my peripheral and chomps onto two, I push up on the controls and rake my lion’s claws through the air before us to knock any remaining drones away. 

“Now!” Shiro barks and immediately I feel the others essences snap around me like lassoes thrown across the room, it’s dizzying to latch onto them they’re so wide-swung but it’s easy with Hunk and Pidge, I can almost metaphysically see them throw it and can latch onto them quicker, Shiro’s is a vague outline, but it’s a breeze compared to grabbing Keith and Lance, it’s like we’re in a dark room throwing our essences at each other and hoping they grab you or you grab them. We shift into Voltron while propelling through the air, I can feel my lion changing beneath my feet and once we’re formed it settles; moving while forming Voltron feels a lot like running after you’ve just eaten, it’s difficult and slightly nauseating but once it’s over everything feels a lot easier. Immediately I feel Hunk and Pidge’s presences in my mind like a buzz of energy when you walk into a crowded room, I get encompassed in their thoughts and feelings, Hunk is hungry, he didn’t get as much breakfast as he wanted because he was anxious about today’s exercise, Pidge is exhausted, she was up late after the others went to bed pouring over a video feed-

_ ‘Oh my crow, that was crazy!’  _

_ ‘Whoa what the… Will, your lion’s essence is like… moving with you right now. I usually don’t feel it but it’s like you’re wrapped up in her-’ _

_ ‘Why did my butt get so sore all of a sudden?’ _

Before I can even begin to panic Shiro barks, “Legs, Will, evasive maneuvers, the ion cannon’s about to fire!” Immediately I flip the switches, barrelling through the air right as I notice the lime green light of the pylons in Olkarion’s mountaintops fire. I can feel the heat on my back from the blast following right on our tail. 

Once it’s faded Shiro lets out a hard breath. “Alright, that was good. Split back up into your lions, let’s go again.” 

Both Hunk and Pidge’s thoughts echo one another in perfect unison,  **_‘Ugh.’_ ** __

… 

After the fifth reformation Shiro lets out a heavy breath and speaks over the com, “Alright, I think that’s enough of that. Ryner, disable the defenses.” 

_ ‘Oh thank crow, I never thought that that would end.’  _

_ ‘Yeah, those last few shots kinda hurt, is it weird that my ass is still sore?’  _

_ ‘... I feel it too. When did Voltron get shot in the butt?’  _

I swallow as my thoughts begin to gravitate in a certain direction but I quickly stamp it down,  _ nope no clue, wait a minute, I have no idea why, why would their asses be sore? That makes no sense. _

Olkarion’s ion cannon’s light dies, and the drones disengage from the fields of space, Ryner’s voice comes over the com, “I hope this has been beneficial to you?”

_ ‘Wait a minute, it’s  _ **_your_ ** _ ass that’s sore when we formed? So… we can feel each other’s pain once we’re in Voltron even if it wasn’t originally from when we were inside of it?’  _

I use all of my concentration to keep my thoughts a blank slate as Shiro keeps speaking over the com, “Yes, very much so, thank you, Ryner. We’re on our way back down.”

_ ‘That’s an interesting theory, but what I’m concerned with is how you bruised your tailbone between now and when we fought the ro-beast yesterday, like did you fall really hard when you got out of bed or something?’  _

My face flares a bright scarlet and without my consent my thoughts run immediately to Keith, the memory of  _ how exactly did my ass get sore _ , his tongue on my neck and his hands on my shoulders and his name on my lips-

**“** ** _WILLIAM LANCASTER!”_** Pidge screeches at full volume and with full offense, I’m choking on my own tongue as both Pidge and Hunk are quite literally mentally reeling in my skull, I can feel their embarrassment, doubling my own to the point that I start stammering out loud, “I-Err, _fucking hell_ I’m sorry! I didn’t-!”

 _“Oh my CROW_ that was the last thing, and I mean _the last thing_ I _ever_ wanted to see, oh my- please don’t think that again, I’m _begging you_. _Oh my crow._ ” Hunk shudders audibly, I can feel his thoughts flicker to a woman’s round face, worry and anxiety, _what would Mama say_. I feel Pidge’s mind suddenly flicker as the embarrassment fades, working into overdrive. 

“What the heck did you do?” Lance cries incredulously, causing me to internally lose my shit,  _ I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, you just asked and- _

_ ‘Wait a minute,’  _ Pidge’s thoughts settle, thinking in a logical manner seems to push away the shock of the moment as she speaks in my mind,  _ ‘That wasn’t just a wild gay thought. That was a memory.’  _

I flounder immediately and I panic when I realize she can feel it, I know she can feel it because satisfaction ebbs off of her in waves as Hunk, feeling this occur, gasps loudly over the com, “ _ Oh. My. Crow.  _ **_That’s_ ** what you were doing last night?!” 

Pidge is leagues ahead mentally, she tags on with a wicked snort, “More like  _ who  _ he was doing last ni-”

I lift my visor and bury my face in my hands with a loud groan, _ “Shut up, Pidge!” _

“Wait a minute, whoa, slow down.” Shiro eases us in a diplomatic manner, “What’s going on? Are you guys okay?” Fortunately now with the exercise over our bonds as Voltron begin to loosen, I pull away from the others quickly to keep my thoughts to myself as they’re filled with nothing but  _ oh my God why oh my God why oh my God why _ .

_ “No I’m not okay!”  _ Hunk whimpers, “I’m scarred for  _ life! _ ” 

I can’t help but grumble under my breath, “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” 

“Excuse me but I’m still-  _ oh my God,  _ okay, first of all, it’s about time, okay, it’s literally been so agonizing watching this from afar, okay-” Pidge interrupts, speaking in such a fast manner I almost can’t catch up, “Second of all, when were you gonna tell us that this  _ torture  _ was finally over?” 

_ “What the heck are you guys going on about?”  _ Lance cries indignantly, I curl my lip with my palms pressed to my temples. 

Pidge and Hunk both start speaking over one another to answer, “Will and Keith-” “They finally-” “-are together, I think-? Or-”  _ “-fucked.” _

The silence over the com is so physically awkward that my skin feels like it’s about to vibrate off my skeleton. I let out a slow, pressurized breath, my hands sliding down my face with utter humiliation before I mumble, “Anyone know how do I open up the airlock in my cabin?”

“Wait, really? I thought you said you went to bed early last night.” Lance asks with a surprisingly calm tone, surprising because I figured he would be going as bananas as Hunk and Pidge are.  _ Wow, this is the worst possible way this could’ve gone.  _

“Really?  _ That’s  _ what you’re focusing on?” Hunk shrieks indignantly.

Pidge snickers wickedly. “Oh, he  _ went to bed _ .” 

I let out a hard burst of air, “Pidge, I am going to  _ beat your ass  _ when we get back to the Castle.”

“Can you uh… elaborate, on how you um… heard this?” Keith’s voice is hesitant and confused, despite the raging red in my face my heart stammers at the sound.  _ Fuck. Oh my GOD. This is literally the most embarrassing moment of my entire life. This is it, right here.  _

“Okay so when we’re in Voltron, you know how we can hear each other’s thoughts?” Hunk’s voice is high pitched, probably as he’s still mentally recovering, “Well, sometimes when one of us is thinking about something in their past the rest of us get like, a snapshot of their memories when one of us is thinking about something related to it. Most of the time it’s just like, words or emotions but other times it’s like we’re reliving the memory with them.”

I close my eyes as I let out ashamed groan, I can almost feel the discomfort radiating from the other lions. “Well, on the bright side,” Pidge interrupts as I bury my face in my hands, leaning my elbows on the console, “We also learned that we can feel any uh…  _ injuries  _ that were sustained outside of Voltron once we reform. I think that’s why I felt your lion’s presence when we formed it the first time, she was probably healing you, right?”

“Wait, what? What injuries?” Lance asks incredulously. 

I bang my helmet against the dash of my lion, I literally  _ could not  _ get any redder in the face. “One of y’all, just do me a favor, and just shoot my lion in the face. Please.”

“Don’t think about it too hard.” Hunk whimpers with a shudder, “I wish I could scrub-wash my brain.” 

I bury my face in the crook of my arms and take my helmet off, setting it just in front of me so I can still hear the com but mostly so I can yell into the muffled fabric of my suit in my inner arm without them hearing me.  _ Yep. This is it. This is 100% the most embarrassing moment in my entire life.  _

“Is this gonna be a problem?” Keith growls with low patience, making the burn in my cheeks spread everywhere, even the pads of my fingers feel like they’re blushing. 

“Absolutely not, no, I’m so fucking relieved.” Pidge swears loudly, I can hear a soft  _ clank  _ in the background as she has her com engaged, “Seriously, it’s been  _ so painful  _ watching you two from afar, I’m just glad that you’ve stopped being idiots.”

“Well… you guys being together, no, no problem there.” Hunk mutters hesitantly in response, “But getting thoughts like  _ that  _ pushed into my brain when we’re fighting?  _ Yeah _ , that’s a bit of a problem _. _ ”

I flush and yank my helmet back on and shout,  _ “We weren’t fighting, you were thinking up theories about why my ass was hurting!!” _

“... Okay, maybe.” Hunk huffs with a verbal shudder, “Lesson learned.”

“Wait a minute, I’m still… you guys are a thing now?” Lance asks with a gentle, confused lilt.  _ I’m kind of shocked he’s acting so calm. I thought he would’ve lost his mind, like Hunk and Pidge. Well, they got a wakeup that was WAY too much insight into the office so maybe that’s why. God, this is the worst. _

Finally mentally done I sit up and snap back, “ _ Yes _ , we’re a  _ thing  _ now, I’m sorry that you had to hear about it this way but yeah, we are, so can we  _ please - for the love of all that is good in this world - move on? _ ” 

“Oh speak for yourself, I’m never letting this die.” Pidge laughs maniacally in response. 

“I’m glad you two have talked things out.” Shiro replies in such a classically Shiro manner that it takes me a moment to realize he isn’t talking about something generically team building, “We’ll need to be focused when it’s time to take on Zarkon.” When I look up through the gaze of my lion I can see the Black Lion peeling away from our relatively loose huddle and heading back towards Olkarion, so we fall in line to follow.

“How much talking was actually involved?” Pidge snickers. I spot the Green Lion ahead of me and I act without thinking, I shoulder her from within my lion and I hear her squeak over the com. I smirk, filled with a bit of self satisfaction.

“Kind of a lot, actually.” Keith answers in a matter of fact tone, his tone sounds far away and pensive.  _ Hnnnnnnn. _

“Alright. Okay.” Pidge lets out a short huff before she speaks again, “I promise I’ll let it drop, but I only have one question I need answered: who’s the top?”

_ “PIDGE HOLT.”  _ I snap back as we delve back into the Olkarion atmosphere, I’m finding it hard to focus on the descent when I’m too busy internally dying to think. 

“... Okay, so Keith.” 

My face blooms like an emergency flare as Lance snickers, “Oh please, there’s no way, Keith’s all  _ broody  _ and stuff on the outside but I bet he’s all cuddles and teddy bears once it gets down too it. Isn’t that right?” He sounds goading and, fortunately, more typically like Lance.

Keith huffs but doesn’t reply, so defensively I growl, “Hey Lance, are you allergic to nuts? ‘Cause if you keep talking I’m gonna kick yours into your goddamn throat.” 

Lance snorts with an impish laugh as the Castle below comes into view, a pearl among the sunlit motherboard of the Olkari city around it, but as we descend I start when a sudden, familiar, bell-like voice punctuates over the com, “Paladins, when you have a moment, come to the engineering lab. There is something that we must discuss.” 

“Oh hey, Princess!” Lance suddenly pipes up enthusiastically. “Sure thing, we’ll be right down.”

“... After some lunch though, right?” Hunk begs with a pleading manner as I open my hanger door remotely, guiding Silver within slowly, “I’m  _ starving _ .” 

“After lunch.” Shiro verbally agrees. “Desuit and meet up in the dining hall, from there we’ll head to the labs.” 

I take off my helmet and make my way to my armory to take my suit off, internally melting like a puddle at the thought of facing the others after  _ that _ .  _ I’ve never been so humiliated. Jesus, I did not wish for Pidge and Hunk to see so… vividly into my head like that, God, that was the worst, that was the worst. How can I look them in the eye after that? Hell, how can I look  _ **_any_ ** _ of them in the eye, that’s so embarrassing, that was not the way I wanted for that conversation to happen. This is karma for my decision to wait to tell them all, isn’t it? Fuck you too, universe. I was gonna get around to it and do it in a manner that’s like… well, not Pidge and Hunk looking into my head and seeing me having sex with Keith. Literally  _ **_anything else_ ** _ would have been better than that, oh my GOD- _

I’m rifling through a drawer on my knees in search for a pair of pants I’d discarded at some point in the past to put on - because pants under a flight suit is one of the worst sensations ever - when I hear the door to my armory open and close. I blink and turn around with some pants in my hand and balk when I see Keith, he’s already back in normal clothes but lacking the jacket, like me he probably only has clothes in his armory from past times we’ve changed into our armor from there.. Immediately I start talking before I can even process his presence, grasping my pants at hand in a vice grip as I stand up, “Oh my God, I am  _ so sorry  _ about that! I’m so embarrassed, that was the  _ literal worst way  _ that that could’ve happened, please don’t be upset with me-” 

Keith crosses the room without pause and covers my mouth with a hand,  _ clad in fingerless gloves _ , “Shh.” I let myself be silenced as Keith drops his hand, his expression is gentle and resolute and I try not to balk with his violet gaze flickering between my eyes back and forth, it’s how I can see he’s  _ really  _ looking at me and it makes my throat tighten inexplicably. “Will, it’s okay, I’m not upset.”

I stare at him for a long moment before dropping my gaze to my hands worming through the fabric of my pants before letting out a slow breath, “... Thank you. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” 

Keith scoffs, bringing my gaze up to his to see him smirking, “You’re the one that was uncomfortable.” I open my mouth to argue and he cocks an eyebrow at me questioningly as if to say  _ am I wrong _ , my voice dies in my throat from the simple gaze  _ alone _ .  _ Wow he’s so fucking beautiful.  _

“... Well don’t tell  _ me  _ that  _ you  _ wouldn’t be mortified if you accidentally-” I bite my lip after a moment and cut off that line of thought, instead switching directions as I let out a relieved breath, “Geez. It’s whatever. Well, now they know, everything’s out on the table, so to speak, so it’s probably for the best, anyway, right?”

I hop into my pants now with the moment passed, I sit on the bench in the middle of the room to pull my shoes on as Keith rumbles, “Right.” I see his boots come past me through my peripheral but they stop, I pause and shift to look up as I expected him to walk out through the door. He stands by the doorway with his arms crossed lazily over his chest and looks at me expectantly, I find my hands fumbling at the sight alone.  _ Fucking hell. I’m too gay for this.  _

“So what were you thinking about?” He asks after a moment with a thoughtful tone, when I look up at him I see that his eyebrow is raised curiously. 

I blink. “What?” 

Keith smirks and it’s like a blastwave sent through my chest as he approaches. I flicker my gaze back down to finish getting my shoes on but just before I do Keith’s fingertips touch my chin and tilt my face up towards him, my heart stammers in my chest as he looks at me with a cocky and  _ attractive  _ smirk, “I asked what you were thinking about.” 

I swallow audibly as his thumb drags across my bottom lip and immediately my face erupts a brilliant scarlet. 

For a few solid seconds my mind is blank except  _ oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck  _ until I can regather my senses, but once I do I curl my nose at him and playfully nip his thumb before growling, “Unfair! You’re  _ so  _ cruel, how the  _ hell  _ can you look at me like that with such a  _ straight face _ .” I stand up once I’m finished complaining, Keith merely looks on with a wicked smirk with his arms crossed back over his chest, I poke him just below his collar as I huff playfully, “Damnit Keith, you better watch yourself or-” 

“Or what?” Keith cocks an eyebrow at me with a completely straight face and for a moment the room is still, I feel like there’s a frantic bird trapped in my ribcage.  _ Oh do you really want an answer to that? You wanna do this dance? _

I don’t get the chance to answer as I hear Pidge’s voice in the hanger outside,  _ “Hurry up, lovebirds, we’re hungry!”  _

Keith smirks victoriously, turning on heel and only briefly pausing in the doorway to rumble, “Your shoe’s untied.” 

I look back down at my feet and after a moment of internally burning I sit down to finish the work I’d started, but got  _ distracted  _ doing, when Keith walks out, I immediately start scheming with revenge on my mind.  _ Oh Keith. You’re _ **_so_ ** _ gonna regret that later.  _

I walk out shortly after and see the team standing in the middle, as soon as I join them Shiro wastes no time guiding us out like a busload of children to the dining hall for goo. I have to fight to shake the feeling that I’m naked and laid bare before the team now, Pidge keeps looking at me with a  _ far too amused _ expression and Hunk keeps  _ not  _ looking at me, like if he were I would blind him. Internally I wonder if he’s actually uncomfortable with Keith and I, or if it was the manner in which he learned that makes him act this way.  _ Probably the latter. Poor Hunk. His first thought was of his mom, “What would mama say.” Aww, Hunk. _

We sit down and eat in relative quiet but not somber, in fact the atmosphere feels surprisingly light. I hadn’t realized how much I felt bogged in the whole  _ conceal don’t feel  _ mentality from breakfast but now that it’s gone it’s… freeing. I can look over at Keith and just… look. Admire. There are no barriers now, I can think as many gay thoughts as I want to because the world knows that I’m gay for Keith and that’s okay, it’s okay.  _ Well, I shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts while in Voltron because… yeah. Poor Hunk.  _

Once we’ve eaten Shiro guides us out of the Castle and down to the surface projector to take us to Olkarion, and I’m finding that stepping out onto the platform and feeling the wind on my skin is just as amazing as the first time. I didn’t realize how much I missed the feeling of fresh air on your skin until it was gone and then returned, it’s invigorating, I feel renewed, like after you take a shower after going without for too long. Pidge enthuses about the lab we’re headed to, apparently the one she had roped Lance and Hunk into going last night, and I admit I’m not listening in the slightest, I’m too busy enjoying the sunshine and the air.  _ Wow, I really am just a simple guy, huh?  _

The descending ramps down the building lead us to the engineering lab, within visual of the massive teludav ring under construction. Inside doesn’t look necessarily remarkable save for a massive holographic panel resting in the middle of the room, like a map in a medieval war tent, and windows looking out over the construction sight. Inside Allura, Ryner, and Coran reside on the opposite side of the panel as the doorway, and when we enter Allura clasps her hands over her lap, beaming where she stands on the opposite side, “It’s good you’re here, thank you for joining us.” 

“Of course, Princess, what do you need?” Shiro replies, getting right down to business as we gather around the table. Pidge immediately moves to Ryner’s side, her gaze is starry as she looks down at the holographic panel with evident excitement. 

“We’ve encountered a few logistical problems with the teludav.” Coran pipes up with his arms behind his back, his enthusiastic voice carrying in the room as he taps the panel. Before him a massive hologram of the teludav ring appears, I count seven leaf-like spokes pointing downward as Coran speaks in a bubbly but professional tone, “As you well know, the process for a teludav to make a jump requires the initial input of the initiation quintessence, collecting and then passing through the Balmera crystal until it reflects this raw energy off of the scaultrite crystals.” He lifts his hand to his silvery mustache, he curls the end thoughtfully with two fingers as he continues, “Unfortunately, we’ve hit a bit of a snag in this area, and we are hoping that you all will be able to help.” 

“What kind of snag?” Shiro asks with furrowed eyebrows, his gray eyed gaze shifting across the holographic image of the teludav analytically. 

“Simply due to the size of the wormhole needing to be generated, the initial input of quintessence is going to be much more taxing.” Coran flickers his gaze to Allura’s with a spark of worry, she meets it with a comforting expression before Coran continues, “However we have a few theories on what can be done in order to minimize this initial amount by already having some stored up, in a manner of speaking, before the process begins.” 

I find my gaze lingering on Allura where she stands with her hands clasped in her lap, regarding the teludav with an intense expression filled with ferocity when Coran’s gaze shifts away from her.  _ Coran’s worried about the initial cost of the teludav’s massive jump being too great, even for Allura’s abundance of quintessence. I remember what it was like having my quintessence ripped out… I hope to all that’s good in the world that we can avoid that. She said somehow “bonding” with it in the Castle made its cost lesser, I sure hope that that’s something they’ve thought to do. Whatever it is that they’ll ask for it going to get done as quick as possible, I’m gonna ensure that that feeling never happens to Allura. _

“One of these theories is to have the lions be stationed at the teludav’s location for the time we are constructing it.” Ryner picks up, their hands clasped in their lap as they regard each of us with an amicable expression, “They exude naturally overflowing quintessence that we hope can begin to accumulate within the teludav, but this requires some time. If you keep your lions housed near them, we hope that those energies will overlay onto the teludav from their presence alone and collect it for the next few days while we finish construction.” 

“Alright. So we’ll keep the lions at the teludav for a few days, no problem.” Shiro echoes with a raised eyebrow for confirmation.

Allura nods, touching her fingertips to the holographic panel’s surface, “There’s more. Unfortunately the gravity generator needs a great amount of energy as well, but a different kind than from a Balmera crystal.”

Hunk hesitantly raises his hand, causing Allura to pause and regard him with a confused expression. He smiles sheepishly, “Ah, sorry to interrupt, but shouldn’t Slav be here for this? It’s his machine.” 

“He’s already working with our engineers on possible solutions.” Ryner replies simply, resting their hands under their tunic sleeves folded in front of them like a regal emperor, “Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that much will be able to be done about the energy discrepancies. This means that the gravity generator will only be able to be activated to cloak the teludav for a limited amount of time until the energy collapses in on itself, and it will not be able to be used again once this happens.” 

Shiro frowns slightly at this, “So this means that we will have a limited amount of time to get Zarkon into position and to get the virus infected into his system. No do-overs.” He nods slowly with a dark set in his brow, “If it’s what we have to work with then we’ll make do. I’ll contact the Blade of Marmora this evening and share this information with them.” 

Keith straightens from where he stands next to Shiro, his gaze that had been glued to the teludav flickers to him before he looks across the room and out the windows contemplatively.  _ I never thought to ask this, but I wonder if Keith has had an opportunity to speak to Kolivan and get answers to the questions he had. He doesn’t seem as tense as he was going to the Blade of Marmora’s base, less than when he left with Hunk to get the scaultrite, too, so I wonder if he’s gotten more information since then.  _

_ Fucking hell, how selfish am I for not thinking to ask him about that? I’m going to later, ask how he’s feeling about this identity resolution. Or perhaps crisis. I hope it’s the former. _

Pidge turns and looks up at Ryner, straightening her glasses on her nose, “You said you had other theories on how to instill more initial quintessence in the teludav, though, is there anything beyond just keeping the lions nearby?”

“Yes,” Coran nods, his light blue eyes lock on Allura as he speaks in a fond, paternal manner, “We’re working on bonding Allura’s life force to the teludav so that the jump will be less taxing upon her, as well as binding the Castle of Lions to the teludav so she can operate it remotely from there, thusly drawing upon the Castle’s natural quintessence stores.” Coran straightens, his gaze shifting to each of ours around the room, “However, we have one other idea that we wish to put forth that you can help with.” Coran’s gaze pauses on mine, I blink with wide eyes as he states, “Specifically  _ your  _ help, Number four.” 

I look at him, look at Ryner then Allura, before I shake my head incredulously, “How the hell am I supposed to help with that?” 

“The White Lion’s stone has proven capable of performing alchemy.” Coran replies, his arms clasped behind his back as he nervously flickers his gaze over to Allura, who merely stares at the teludav’s hologram, before he looks back to me, “We’re hoping that you can craft an enhancing device that amplifies quintessential power.” 

I blink once, twice, thrice, before shaking my head slightly, “Jesus- I have no idea if I can do that. I don’t even know how I did that the  _ first  _ time, how the hell am I supposed to make something like that? I don’t even understand how the hell that would work, or where it would be placed, or… That’s too vague!”

“Yeah, actually” Hunk hops on with his arms crossed over his chest, “And why does it have to be something only Will can make? Don’t you have materials you can use here that can do that?”

Ryner steps forward and taps a spindly finger on the holographic panel, bringing up an image of what looks like a double helix strand of DNA, except it has sharp corners, making it look like those folded squares you make in kindergarten. Numbers array its sides with lettering beside it I don’t understand as they speak in an academic manner, “When we took back King Lubos’ palace we found a trove of his old blueprints, one of which is such a device. It’s ancient, it precedes his lifetime, and the materials that it demands… they exist, but they are hard to find, and difficult to obtain. It would take time.” 

“Time we don’t have.” Shiro finishes with a pensive frown, his arms crossed over his chest as he regards the holographic structure before him. 

“Exactly.” Coran says with a nod, regarding me with a studious gaze, “So we need Will to transmute the materials we  _ do  _ have to make what we  _ need _ .”

Lance narrows his eyes at the device, pursing his lips as he looks at some of the floating numbers along the sides before he waves his hand, “Hold on, wait a tick, just how big is this thing, exactly?” 

Coran twists his mustache with one hand as he holds the other behind his back, “About ten dublif in height and width, and five in diameter. Says so right here.” Coran moves the hologram to the side to show the aerial view to show the spikey angles, a dotted line to show its center and the “five dublif” distance between the outside and it.

“Wait a minute, isn’t that something like feet?” Pidge starts with wide eyes, the light green of the hologram’s light reflects off of the surface of her glasses and obscuring her visage, “This thing’s as tall as if I were to sit on Shiro’s shoulders?” 

Coran looks at Pidge, looks at Shiro, then nods, “I’d say just about, yes.” 

“There’s no way that’s possible.” I blink over at Keith as he glares daggers at the holographic device like it just called him a slur, “The last time Will made something he nearly passed out, and it was the size of an egg.” 

“Perhaps, but the carbine disk is a far more complicated device.” Coran answers in a diplomatic tone, flickering his gaze from Keith to me then back to Keith with something like hesitation, “The quintessential enhancer is much more basic. And its materials are found naturally, so perhaps it will be an easier task to perform.” 

“I mean… sure, but it’s still _ ten feet tall _ .” Hunk offers as he looks at the device with worry shining in his gaze. 

Lance tilts his head curiously before he shrugs, “I dunno, maybe he can do it in pieces.” He gestures vaguely to the bottom of the structure where it’s cross hatched like an x, straight as iron bars for smelting, “You know, instead of all at once?” 

I feel the others gazes flicker to me expectantly. I let out a slow breath, looking at the device with wide eyes before vaguely waving my hands, “We just gonna ignore that this might not be possible at all? I have no idea how I did it the first time, I’ve no clue if I can do it again!” 

Shiro rests a hand on my shoulder, when I pull my gaze from the holographic image of the enhancer to him he squeezes my shoulder with a meaningful expression, “You don’t know until you try.”

He releases my shoulder as I turn back to look at the device the x shape at the bottom, the sharp angles as they weave together from the top, and hesitantly I pull on the chain around my neck and produce the White Lion’s stone. I feel it pulse gentle warmth into my palm as I wrap my hand around it, taking it off and looking down at it with a pensive, quiet feeling resting around me. Its surface gleams dull like a crystal hidden under water, Kevin lies curled around it without any hint of or signs of movement, and with furrowed eyebrows I look at the device again.  _ Alright. Just like last time. You can do this. Fuck, how did I even do this last time? I was thinking about how the stone worked, it can create something out of nothing, I just needed to draw the energy from somewhere and that energy was from myself, so I can just… pull on my own quintessence, or whatever the fuck, and form this thing. It looks like a metal base, some sort of x shape, and it grows to a jagged double helix up the sides, I can see in the edges that they are meant to be moved, but what powers that movement? What is the material that it’s made from that supposedly so rare? Is it like glass like the disk? Is it like steel? _

_ I don’t know what the fuck i”m doing. _

“... Nothing’s happening.” Lance states the obvious helpfully, when I look up from my palm I can see him flickering his baby blue gaze between me and the enhancer. 

I let out an agitated huff and throw my hands vaguely in the air, “I told you, I don’t know how to do it on command like this!” 

“Maybe it’ll help if we left you to it, no audience, no pressure.” Shiro murmurs, his hand rubbing my back between my shoulderblades affectionately. When I don’t respond except to shrug he turns towards the team, “Come on, let’s hit the training deck back at the Castle.” 

“Aww,  _ man _ .” Lance groans in complaint, I can hear the others turning and walking out but I find myself tuning them out, even as their voices gravitate in the air around me as I focus solely on the bare light emanating from the White Lion’s stone, like a masked star.  _ Fucking hell. How  _ **_did_ ** _ I do this last time? How? I can’t even remember what I was thinking, so much has happened since then, all I can remember is how badly I felt afterwards, like I got hit by a car and then took a final I didn’t study for. _

“I must go, I wish to ensure that Slav’s work is… going as planned.” Ryner hesitates with an enigmatic tone, I look up as they glide from the room with a gesture towards Coran, “Your input would be welcome.” 

Coran lets out a weary sigh, his gaze flickers to Allura, who stands holding her elbows while staring at the mechanical helix, before he moves to follow, “I suppose if I must. If I catch him hitting the teludav with a  _ rock  _ again I’m going to-” His swear words are lost on me as he and Ryner walk from the room, I purse my lips as my gaze flickers from the stone to the machine before I realize I’m left alone with Allura. A frowning, stressed out looking Allura. 

I smirk a bit and let my arm drop, speaking in an amicable and familial tone, “Hah, just us again, like on our way to the Balmera, huh?” 

“Yes.” Allura’s tone is harsh and hard as diamonds, her gaze never leaving the structure before me. 

I blink, internally wondering  _ what the fuck did I do  _ before I remember exactly what it was that I did.  _ Oh. That’s right. I haven’t spoken to her since I told her off back on the bridge. Fuck.  _

_ I don’t want to apologize for what I said because I feel that I’m in the right, but perhaps I should apologize for how I said them. I don’t want to be her enemy.  _ Slowly I bite my lip, thinking about my words for a moment before speaking in a low tone, “Allura, about what happened when we were on the bridge yesterday… I wanna apologize.” 

Allura physically pauses, I watch as her gaze moves from the hologram to mine so I continue before I lose my resolve, “It wasn’t my place to say anything, and how I said it wasn’t… it wasn’t kind.” I twirl my stone’s chain around my fingers idly, watching her cautiously as I conclude, “So… I’m sorry. I’ll think before I speak again in the future.” 

She raises her chin, letting out a weary breath before she rounds the holographic panel. Her fingertips trail along the surface as she moves to stand next to me, I turn towards her to face her more fully and when she speaks it’s with a voice full of iron nails, “How is it that you, of all people, have been able to forgive him?” 

I blink stupidly at her for a solid beat before I cock an eyebrow, “Sorry, what?” 

“I heard your conversation over the communicators.” Allura crosses her arms, her jaw is set and her brow is furrowed as she spits like an angry viper, “After all that the Galra have done, you’re pushing it aside because- I simply cannot fathom how you willingly…  _ laid  _ with one of  _ them _ .” 

I furrow my eyebrows, something harsh and hot grips my throat as I find my hands curling around my stone tighter. “Keith’s not  _ ‘one of them’ _ .” I find the lava spilling forth from my chest, trailing along my tongue slow and languid, “He’s  _ Keith _ . You know, one of the Paladins of Voltron? The same person you said has the quintessence that best matches with the Red Lion?  _ Your father’s  _ lion?” 

Allura snaps back at me with a harsh bite, “Don’t you  _ dare  _ speak to me of my father.” I balk a bit, furrowing my eyebrows as Allura grits her teeth, her gaze is so violent and harsh that if it weren’t for the fire in the back of my throat I would be afraid to be the brunt of it. “The Galra are not to be trusted. They never have been and never will be, and the hurt that they can cause is all the worse when they’re close to you.” Allura plants a hand on the holographic panel, I can see the tension in her knuckles as she hisses, “I thought you of all people would understand that. You care about others, your kindness and empathy knows no bounds, and after  _ all _ that the Galra have done to the world you’re willing to set that aside because of feelings that  _ you told me  _ aren’t congruent with love, for some faux inbetween?” 

Fire burns in my veins, I open my mouth to argue but she cuts me off with a sharp snap, “Those are  _ your words _ , Will, not mine.” I frown as her hand clenches into a fist on the holographic panel’s surface, she glares at me with icy daggers as she growls, “I cannot  _ believe _ that you are able to be intimate with the same race that have slaughtered  _ millions  _ of people for a rise to power, I cannot believe that it’s with someone who shares blood with  _ monsters  _ like Zarkon and Sendak-”

I growl with hellfire and burning fury, “Do you even  _ hear yourself  _ right now? How the  _ fuck _ is Keith anything like Zarkon or Sendak?” I wave an arm towards the doorway with a biting snarl, words spill out before my head can catch up, “I don’t remember ever asking for your  _ permission  _ or  _ input  _ on what it is that I do. You don’t get to decide what I do about my feelings for Keith, and you sure as hell can’t tell me to round him up with a race of people that  _ we never even knew existed  _ until a goddamn  _ month  _ ago!” I let out a sharp breath through my teeth and desperately try to wrangle in my rage before it spits out and I say something I regret, like  _ pound sand, Allura _ . She doesn’t move, she merely looks at me with a gaze full of ice and cold resolution, so after a brief beat I look at her with a hard gaze to try and  _ get through  _ to her,  _ damnit _ . 

“I know that this has been a difficult adjustment period for you, but I’m not gonna let you slander Keith over an accident of birth because like it or not, I still care about him. I don’t give a fuck if he’s technically Galra because he’s  _ more than that  _ to me.” The tips of Kevin’s wings cut deep into my skin and into the scar on my right palm, grounding me and keeping me from biting Allura’s head off as she merely stares at me with a cold, disbelieving expression. “I just wish that you could see beyond his heritage and see him for who he truly is.” 

“I know  _ exactly  _ who he is.” Allura hisses. I set my jaw as her arms now hang at her sides, “He’s a  _ Galra _ . And like all Galra, he’s going to hurt you and everyone who you care about because that’s what Galra  _ do _ .” 

Allura turns on heel away from me, but she stops before she storms out, bracing her arms on the doorway and shooting one final glare at me from over her shoulder, “I thought you understood that. I thought you understood  _ me _ .” 

Her voice hitches on the end, something more lukewarm strangles me as she sets her jaw, I can see her physically shoving down the pain in her visage before she manages to fix me with a gaze of ice. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

She strides out with flame in her wake that leaves me feeling on fire yet completely frozen at the same time, the door closes behind her and leaves me alone in the engineering lab with this encasing burn. 

_ I didn’t think about how Allura would take Keith and I being a thing. Before we knew he was Galra I think she would’ve been happy for me, she said as such before when we head heart to hearts in the past, like after I did that transmutation for the first time.  _

_ I’m beyond angry that this is something that changes her mind about it. I want to write her off and call her racist or something like it, I  _ **_should_ ** _ want to, it’d make it simpler. _

_ But this isn’t simple. Not at all. Because Allura’s right, I do understand her. I understood her the same way when I was three seconds away from skewering Ulaz when he infiltrated the Castle, when I wanted to rip out Kolivan’s throat with my teeth for putting Keith through the stakes of the Trials of Marmora. _

_ But Keith’s not them. He can’t be like them. He’s not just an exception to the rule. I told him I’m not scared of him. And I mean it. _

_ How can I get Allura to see that? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot that I can write chapters that aren't 30,000 words when I get to a good stopping place. What a relief.   
> This chapter has such a balance, start off with fluff, go to mild angst, go to comedic shenanigans to more fluff with a dash of spicy, then end it with intense angst.   
> Oh man. What a palate of delectable things to fuck with. :D


	15. Working Hard or Hardly Working

I sit in the engineering lab for what feels like hours, first trying to mentally recover from the conversation with Allura before I’m able to focus back on trying to make the quintessential enhancer. I sit on the floor and stare at the White Lion’s stone, stare at the holographic image of the device. Nothing. I sit on the countertop across from it and examine it from every angle, trying to mentally visualize it from the ground up. Nothing. My stone doesn’t so much as glow despite how I practically beg and plead for it to fucking  _ do  _ something. I walk around it, pacing, grabbing onto my stone hard enough for Kevin’s wings to bite into the skin to the point that I have to let it go. Nothing. I talk to it to get it to do something, arguing with it,  _ come on, everyone is counting on us, we have to do this.  _ Nothing. I even looked at the ground with it held out in front of me to get it to form like I’m casting a spell but nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I blink when a stray sunbeam gets in my eye, when I shift my gaze to look out the window I can see the sun has begun to set.  _ Oh Jesus, time flies. How long have I been here? Should I head back to the Castle to see if I’m needed? No, that’s stupid, why would they need me? They’re probably just training. Besides, I need to get this done,  _ **_here_ ** _ is where I’m needed. _

_ Fucking hell, why can’t I get this stupid thing done? Why can’t I do what they need me to do? _

I let out an annoyed sigh and toss my stone onto the holographic panel’s surface, the light olive light of the hologram turns it to limestone as I lean on the counter opposite of it.  _ What is my mental block here? I don’t get it, how is this any different than making the carbine disk like last time? I keep looking and staring and trying to figure this stupid thing out, why is this so hard? What the fuck is the issue here? What is  _ **_my_ ** _ issue? _

“Hey man.” I start out of my thoughts when the doorway opens and Lance walks in, he’s bearing something metal at hand that I can’t quite identify, it looks like an almost bowl the size of a baseball. He cocks an eyebrow at me then at the floating hologram, the light streaming through the windows makes him almost glow like sun-kissed copper on pavement, after a moment he smirks, “So I see you’re working real hard on that enhancer thingy.” 

“Fuck off.” I grumble with a playful lilt. 

He looks down at the holographic panel, then at my stone resting on its surface, and after a moment he picks it up and hops onto the surface next to me, holding it and the bowl thing in his hand out to me, “Here. Hunk found the Olkari kitchens.” I blink and take the small metal thing from him but not my stone, I can see there’s a spout that I’m supposed to drink from like a tea kettle, save it’s on the top like a bottle. I glance over at him with a raised eyebrow as Lance’s hand clutching my stone drops to his knee, “It tastes great, promise.” He ventures with a slight smirk, “When have I ever steered you wrong?” 

“You want it in a list or bullet points?” I joke, tentatively taking a sip from the bowl. It’s warm like tea but it’s like a smoothie in texture, fruity and light, but I have no idea what kind of fruit it could be. It just has that tropical, sugary taste. “Thanks for this.” I murmur thankfully before I raise an eyebrow in his direction, “Did everyone have dinner already?” 

“Yeah, that was it.” Lance gestures to the pot in my hands. I look down at his hands where he begins to wind his fingers around the White Lion stone’s chain, noticing my gaze he speaks again, “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. Except for me making an awesome sliding dive shot, but there’ll be more where that came from.” 

“Aww.” I reply with faux sadness, moving to sit next to him on the countertop. I cross my legs on the surface beneath me as I find my gaze continuing to follow Lance’s hands, worming through and around the stone like he’s wringing a cloth, and a stone weighs in the pit in my stomach. “Sorry I haven’t come back.” I mutter.

“It’s fine, dude. You’re obviously hard at work.” Lance teases with an impish grin. I roll my eyes at him but otherwise don’t speak, glaring at the chain he runs his fingers across. After a few moments he rumbles, “You doing okay?”

I let out a hard sigh, setting the pot in my lap and turning to glare at the perpetually humming hologram of the enhancer, “I keep trying to do this stupid thing, but my stone’s doing nothing for me. I’ve tried everything, the only thing I haven’t done is stand on my head and chant in Latin.” Lance snickers a bit, his hands unwinding themselves from the stone’s chain and relieving some of the pressure in my neck. With a belated sigh I mutter, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Why can’t I do this like I did last time, you know?” 

Lance watches me for a moment before he moves and loops the White Lion’s stone around my neck for me while I take a sip from my pot. Immediately the reconnecting surge of energy swarms me and for a moment I don’t hear him speaking because of the sudden roar in my ears, “-just need a break. You’ve been out here for hours, man.” 

I look down as the stone touches my chest, taking another sip from the weird smoothie thing Lance brought. It’s tasty, even with the strangely juxtaposing texture and temperature, and it’s filling me up surprisingly fast. I sigh tiredly, “I just don’t want to fail. It’s important for me to do this, this is something only  _ I  _ can do, and after everything that y’all have done up until this point…” My words die in my throat, the rock in my chest turning cold. I can feel Lance’s gaze on the side of my face but I keep my eyes on the warm pot in my lap.

“What do you mean?” He asks in a soft voice after a moment’s pause. 

I frown, chewing on my lip for a moment, “You’ve all done your parts. You, Shiro, and Pidge broke Slav out of jail, Keith and Hunk got the scaultrite. This is  _ my  _ part, and I’m getting kinda pissed off that I can’t seem to do it.” I grip the pot in my lap tighter where it’s resting on my ankles, in an after thought I mutter under my breath, “I feel like I’m failing the team.” 

“This isn’t you failing, you’ve still got time to figure it out.” Lance’s voice is surprisingly comforting, it sets me very much at ease as he continues in a big brother type voice, “Just take a step back and try again tomorrow, man. Who knows, maybe you’ll have a crazy dream or something and it’ll show you what you need to do.” Lance smirks with a playful lilt in his voice and admittedly it relaxes my shoulders. There’s something about Lance that is comforting, his presence is like a hug and the world doesn’t seem like a difficult place when he’s around, just him telling me to come back to it tomorrow seems like a more than plausible idea.  _ I guess it isn’t make or break right  _ **_now_ ** _. We have a few days before the teludav ring is finished…  _

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I huff, turning to look at Lance. He grins at me impishly, his elbows resting on his knees as his eyes glitter like seashells in crystal clear waters, a crooked expression that looks very much like it belongs to him. One I hadn’t seen today up until now.

_ He seems like he’s back to normal. He was acting strangely since we got back from training, he was quieter… I can’t help but wonder if that was because of the thing with Keith. He just sounded so confused,  _ **_calm_ ** _ and confused. I didn’t expect that from him, and now I can’t help but wonder if it’s for a reason. A bad one. _

“Hey uh, Lance?” He tilts his head to the side to meet my gaze as I speak seriously, “Can I ask you something? Like, real talk?” 

“Sure man.” Lance’s eyebrows furrow in worry but his gaze is just as attentive as before, flickering across my features. 

The question is on my lips, but the words leading up to them are not. “Does this… Is… Do you…  _ Fuck _ , I don’t know how to ask this right.” I huff, curling my fingers around the pot in my lap to think before I start over, “Are you alright with like… my thing with Keith?” 

Lance blinks at me once before he tilts his head to the side without a change in expression, “Uh, yeah? Why?” 

I purse my lips, shifting to cross my legs beneath me as I take another sip of whatever the fuck is in this bowl, “You just were so… chill about it, I guess. And you’re not a chill person. Not that you’re not  _ chill _ , I mean more like… I expected you’d lose your shit like Pidge and Hunk did. But, in all fairness they kind of saw… into… my head…  _ God  _ that was humiliating.” I set the dish aside to bury my face in my hands as embarrassment washes over me anew, a hot flash straight down my neck and into the palms of my hands like I have a fever.

I can hear Lance smirking as he laughs, “ _ I _ thought it was hilarious.” 

“Oh screw you.” I playfully shove on his shoulder as he laughs. Once I straighten up and pick the pot back up in my hands I let out a sigh, flickering my gaze over to Lance’s more seriously, “But seriously… I don’t want to ruin what we’ve all got with this. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or get uncomfortable about it, I know you’ve talked to me about it in the past and were supportive about it then but now that it’s like, a thing…” 

“I got you.” Lance looks down at his hands, his fingers weaving together like a basket as he regards them with a quiet, tranquil expression, “It’s nothing like that. I’m happy for you guys.” 

I watch him for a long while, his gaze never leaving his slowly twirling hands but he makes no movement to elaborate. I venture with a cautious tone, “Then what’s going on with you?”

“There’s nothing going on with  _ me _ .” Lance bristles a bit, flashing me a look I can’t quite discern from the corner of his eye. I raise my hands a bit in surrender, to which he lets out a sigh, releasing a minute amount of tension from his shoulder, “I dunno.” He huffs, a faint rise of crimson colors the tips of his ears as he mutters under his breath, “I guess I’m just surprised is all. After all those problems…” Lance pauses, I watch him chew on his lip in contemplation for a long drag of seconds before he speaks again, “You told me once that you were never going to go after Keith because you said you weren’t good for him, that he deserved someone better than you. And that nothing I said, or what anyone else said could change your mind.” A lump forms in my throat as Lance’s gaze finally flickers over to mine, outside the light of the sunlight they’re mediterranean and vast like an abyssal trench as he murmurs, “Guess I just wanna know what  _ did  _ change your mind.”

Like a snapping back of a curtain from the windows my fears return to me in a fresh tidal wave with the reminder, something cold drapes over my shoulders and even the warmth of the pot in my hand does nothing to penetrate its chill. I chew on my lip, fighting the urge to shiver as I immediately respond, “Nothing’s changed in that manner.”

Lance watches me with a cautious expression, leaning an elbow on his knee to face me more fully. I look at him then at my hands, for a long moment I consider dropping it. Say something quick and enigmatic and leave it be. I didn’t realize how talking to Keith only buried these feelings rather than send them away, like I was hoping they did, but now they’re back in full force like they never left, a sheet of ice crushing my lungs.  _ No such luck. No amount of conversations can erase a year’s worth of history to back up the frost.  _

But I have to answer Lance on this one, because he’s right; I  _ did  _ say that to him. Going back on my own word makes me look fickle, and I don’t want him to think that I turn on a dime at my own whim.  _ It isn’t a whim, though. It was Keith. He made me want to try, he pulled back the curtains of my own bullshit and looked me dead in the face, telling me to tell him that I wasn’t just hiding behind a false guise of protection for  _ **_him_ ** _ when really it was to protect myself. That I had used that protection to hurt him, doing the opposite of what I said I was trying to do because it wasn’t him, it was me. I made him think that I was scared  _ **_of_ ** _ him, and that’s what changed my mind, it woke me up and showed me that I’m not living in a vacuum, my actions have an affect on others, on him.  _

_ Now how do I articulate this? _

“I’m… Lance, I’m not gonna lie to you, that still scares me to no end.” I furrow my eyebrows, closing my eyes as if that can block out the frost spreading over my skin, “But I… I told Keith about it. Because he asked. And… I didn’t tell him everything, I never could, I  _ purposefully  _ don’t for a reason-” 

My throat seizes, only now am I realizing the words that are coming out of my mouth.  _ Did I just take a shot of tell Lance all my secrets juice?  _ I stammer, my eyes widening as I risk a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, “Jesus Christ, you’re too easy to talk to. Gonna make me spill all my beans without even asking.” I jest with a slight aside, smirking a bit with a horrified strangling suppressing my breath. Lance doesn’t look at all phased, he merely keeps his gaze flickering between my eyes with a contemplative expression. 

After a moment I’m able to recover, excusing myself to sip on the bowl before I speak again in a, thankfully, much more level tone, “Even after I told him why I felt that way he said he didn’t care. That he didn’t want me to be afraid of him.” 

“Wow, Keith said that?” Lance smirks suddenly, when I look over at him with a raised eyebrow he cracks a grin, “You sure we’re talking about the same person? Mullet guy, broody, always scowling, carries around an alien knife for kicks?” 

I roll my eyes and smack him playful, “No, really, I’m being serious.” Lance settles his hands in his lap with a residual, joking light in his eyes as I lean my head back on the window behind me that looks out over the construction site.  _ He didn’t want me to be afraid of him.  _

“So  _ he  _ convinced you, did he?” I can see Lance tilting his head to the side in my peripheral. 

I let out a soft sigh, “I don’t know. Kind of. It was more of a wake up call, I guess. It just made me realize that even though I was telling myself I was pushing him away for his own good, really it was just because I was scared about letting someone get close to me again, I wasn’t considering how he was actually feeling.” I bite my lip and smirk a bit as I rest the mostly empty pot in the palms of my hands, “That’s what you and Keith have in common, you know. Y’all are good about calling me out on my bullshit.” 

Lance doesn’t say anything for a long while, the silence is comfortable but expectation hangs in the air, I’m not sure what for or who from, but I can feel it like humidity clinging to my skin. After a beat Lance breaks the silence with a tentative question, “... Again?” 

I blink and look up at him, raising an eyebrow in confusion so Lance elaborates slowly, his expression is cautious but his frame is steady where he sits half facing me with an elbow perched on his knee, “You’re scared of letting someone close to you  _ again _ ?” 

I feel encased in a flash blizzard my blood freezes over so fast. I look away and stare at the pot in my lap with wide eyes as fear ices over my lungs and clouds my thoughts with frost to the point that I barely remember to be alive, to breathe.  _ Fuck I’m holding my breath, breathe, Will.  _

I take a deep breath, mostly to calm myself, once I let it out again do I retain some miraculous coherency to speak, “Yeah. And?” 

I risk a look over at Lance and balk when I see him watching me closely, his expression is intense and searching and it makes my heart stutter in my chest. He opens his mouth and I hear blood in my ears, “... So was there once-” 

I cut in sharply without a second’s thought behind it, my lips pulled back in a snarl, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Lance.” 

Lance puffs up a bit, his brow set with an incredulous rise in his tone, “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want an answer!” 

I grit my teeth and look away, out the window to my right instead to try and regather myself before I say something I regret. I can feel I’m starting to shake just at the thought, I’m too frostbitten to open up without breaking parts of me off.  _ Calm down. You’re acting too obvious, like there’s something wrong. There’s nothing wrong, you’re just stupid, relax.  _ Once I’m able to dethaw my thoughts I speak with a soft voice, vulnerable and quiet and  _ pathetic _ , I wish it wasn’t so but I can’t really control it as the words slip out, “Please don’t push me on this, okay?” 

To my shock Lance doesn’t answer, I can hear his fingertips drum on the surface we’re sitting on until after a moment I feel his hand rest on my shoulderblade, “... Okay, man. I’m sorry.” Cautiously I turn back a bit towards him and see his gaze is glued to his hand, now braced on my arm, as he speaks with a slight frown, “It just seems like… whatever this is… it bothers you. Like, a lot. I’m just trying to help.”

Emotion swells in my throat and unwillingly a shaky breath pushes through my lips. “I know.” I mutter, closing my eyes as I take a moment to focus on my breathing, to make it  _ normal _ , before I speak again, “I know that. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“It’s ‘kay. I was kinda prodding you a little too hard.” Lance jokingly pokes me in the ribs and I whirl around to glare at him as he smirks a bit, “Annoying, isn’t it? Now you know how we feel when you decide to go all Shrinky Paladin on us.” 

“ _ ‘Shrinky Paladin’ _ ?” I echo with a raised eyebrow, tilting my head back to finish up the last of the warm smoothie thing. He’s moving on to eradicate the tension in my body, I know it and I appreciate it, but I still feel like an ice cube sitting on this surface.  _ I need to move to return the feeling to my toes.  _ I push off of the flat surface of the counter, I can feel my stone bumping against my chest as I do; the sun has officially begun its final descent, the golden hour of light has begun to pass and the skies are bright orange and scarlet, darkness is beginning to fall.  _ How long have we been here?  _

“It’s true!” Lance proclaims, moving to hop off as well. I approach the hologram hovering in the middle of the panel, I stare at its surfaces, each angle, each sharp edge that I can practically trace now for how long I’ve been dissecting this thing, and one last time I grab onto my stone and focus.  _ One last time. Do it. Please. Make the enhancer so I don’t let the others down.  _

Nothing happens. I can feel Lance watching me curiously from the doorway. After a moment I sigh in resignation, to which Lance juts a thumb outside, “Heading back to the Castle? I was gonna find Hunk and see if we can’t go out exploring the town again, if you wanna come with.” 

“... Yeah, I’m heading back.” I let out a soft breath as I turn off the holographic panel before I move to follow Lance reluctantly, my feet feel like lead as we leave the engineering labs behind. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d love to come. Get my mind off this stuff.” 

“Awesome, you totally should, if you work too hard you’ll end up like Keith.” I shoot Lance a playful glare to which he snickers in response, I shove him gently as we make our way back up to the Castle. As we begin our ascent Lance points to the massive construction site spread below, “We moved all our lions before dinner onto that bit over there, to do the quintessence whatevers. I’d take yours down there before Shiro yells at you.” 

I snort and shake my head, “When has Shiro ever  _ yelled _ ? He’s a giant teddy bear that preaches teamwork and togetherness, I don’t think it’s possible for him to ever  _ yell _ .”

Lance snickers and shrugs with a playful wink. Once we’re on the surface projector Lance shoves his hands in his pockets lazily and speaks again, “The others were gonna contact the Marmorites when I left, so if you wanna go see your  _ oh so sensitive Keithy boy _ before we head out, I’d check the bridge.” 

“I hate you.” I growl under my breath as the doors open, pausing only briefly as I raise an eyebrow over at him, “Hold on, did you say Marmorites?” 

“Yeah! That’s what I’m calling the Blade of Marmora. Marmorites.” Lance replies with a wide, impish grin. 

I have to suppress a laugh as we leave the hanger together. “I just call them Blades. Sounds cooler.” I counter with a grin.

Lance whirls on me with a red face and a kidlike light in his eye, “Hey, Marmorites are cool, too!” We part ways as Lance heads towards our rooms, he waves at me as he goes with a call, “Anyway, I’ve gotta shower before I go anywhere, I’ll see you soon man, great talk!” 

“Yeah yeah, see you, Sharpshooter.” I huff with a dismissive wave. As I’m heading towards my hanger I find myself smiling, a shred of warmth through the flurry of my thoughts. 

_ And that’s despite how dangerously close I got to talking about Damien.  _

I approach my lion where she lies with her head between her paws, when I walk up the stairs inside her jaws the lights flicker on slowly but surely so by the time I’m in the pilot’s seat she’s wide awake, I can feel her presence resting pretty in my chest. I grasp the controls, an oddly strange feeling considering that every time I’d piloted her I’d been in my Voltron suit, so now in regular clothes I feel kind of naked. I open her hanger remotely and slowly guide her outside, and once I’m in the air I scan the construction site, quickly spotting the others’ lions nestled in a bunch, their massive barriers highlight them easily like a collection of multicolored neon disco balls. I set my lion down beside them, and once I’m rising to leave I feel her deactivate with a sort of metaphysical pout. I pat her holographic panel and chuckle a bit, “Hey, it’s okay, we’ll be fighting some Galra in no time.” 

Her presence recedes without anything in response, not that I expected her to, so I walk out of her jaws and back out onto the surface of the teludav ring. When I look up I can see the sun’s last rays reflecting off of the Castle high up in the air, literally a glittering palace on a hill; with a heavy sigh in resignation for the trek, I make my way up. 

_ I still can’t believe I almost spilled about Damien. I can’t believe Lance was almost able to place a finger on the biggest, fucked up part of my past I want to keep buried, and I almost let him. Lance is just… he’s so good at breaking down my walls that I didn’t even realize he had until I passed an area that’s usually met with resistance and I’d felt the consistency within for the first time and man, I did not like it, it was too new, too sudden; I felt like a fish getting dropped into a tank of a wildly different temperature. I’m going to have to be careful around Lance from now on. I like him, I don’t want to lie to him, but I don’t want him to know that about me. I don’t want  _ **_anyone_ ** _ to know that about me, if I could wipe the memory of Damien off the face of those closest to me that would be ideal. But no such luck.  _

_ I didn’t think that these fears would already be crawling back to me so quickly. I thought talking to Keith had gotten rid of them but they’re still here, still kicking and morphing my blood to slushies, within twenty four hours no less. Well, actually, that is kind of a record for my internal anxieties to stay at bay for so long, so I’ll give it that.  _

_ Although Lance was just being a tease earlier, I do want to go see Keith. I want to see if by some freak accident the last twenty four hours have been a hoax, if he still feels the same, if being with him still feels the same after that. More than that though I don’t want to dwell on my fears anymore. Being around him… he’s so… silencing. He quiets the clamor in my head and God I want that so badly right now, I want to drown this fear someplace else, ignore it and shove it away. I used it as an excuse for far too long to keep him at an arm’s length, I’m not going to let myself do it again. I’m cold and he makes me feel warm.  _

_ … Sounds dirty when I say it like that, but that’s not really it, he’s just… he as a person is like sitting by a warm fire and when my thoughts get too rambunctious they scatter like ashes. I don’t wanna think anymore. I just wanna bask in his sunlight silence. _

Finally I get back to the Castle after trekking up ramps and stairs to the top of the tower away from the construction site. I make my way to the bridge, growing a bit breathless, and by the time I walk in I find the team is lounging around Hunk’s seat to the left, there’s no transmission feed up on the holographic screen at the front.  _ Guess that means the group call with the Blades is over.  _   
Pidge is sitting cross legged on the arm of Hunk’s chair with Hunk sitting in it, both of them looking at his holographic panel. Shiro stands with his arms crossed with a contemplative expression as he watches them work from over their shoulder and Keith leans on the far side with his palm on the left side of Hunk’s chair, watching like a shadowed spectre When I walk in Shiro turns about and his expression softens when he spots me, “Hey. Any luck with the quintessence enhancer?” 

Apparently the darkness that comes across my face answers the question for him, as the light in his expression slightly mutes. I let out a sigh and throw my hands out a bit to the sides, “I can’t get it to work. I’m gonna try again tomorrow, go back at it refreshed.” 

“Good plan.” Shiro nods with affirmation.

I approach the others crowded around Hunk’s chair, raising an eyebrow in curiosity, “So what’re y’all up to?” 

“Kolivan sent us some files and a decryptor key, so we were running it first to make sure it works.” Pidge answers simply, turning around and pushing her glasses up her face by scrunching her nose, “He had access to a bunch of intel on minor rebel groups that Zarkon was aware of, so I’m hoping it’ll be a place to start looking for Matt.”

“Yeah, it’s super cool, too.” Hunk beams with starry eyes glued to what looks like thousands of coded figures zooming across his screen, “They use this triple layered code from three different sources and then with a _hidden_ _fourth_ layer for translations, it’s kind of genius but it also means it takes _forever_ to extract their stuff, even with the keys.” 

_ Jesus. My head’s spinning. Well at least they got that much information out, but what about the initial purpose of the call?  _ I look up to Shiro with a tilted head and a business like attitude, “So what did they say about the gravity generator issue?” 

Shiro crosses his arms, meeting my gaze evenly, “Our plans have changed a bit. We’re gonna draw Zarkon to this quadrant so that we can wait to activate the generator until the last second and still have it be undetected rather than take it already cloaked to him. Problem is, it may be harder to get his attention if he’s too far away, and it _will_ be harder to get his ship into position. We’re waiting on word from one of his people on his ship’s current position so we can plan accordingly.” 

I nod, tilting my head to the side at Pidge and Hunk where they sit watching the stream of symbols with mixed analytic gazes before breaking into a smirk, “Wow, I feel so official. Talking about super secret plans and whatnot.”

Shiro lets out a soft breath of amusement as Hunk proclaims with an excited grin thrown at me over his shoulder, “I know, right? It’s like being in on an inside joke! Except the joke is a super important plan to overthrow a super powerful, super evil dictator.” He frowns a bit as he finishes his sentence and then pouts, “Well when I say it like that it sounds a whole lot less so.” He glances over at me after a moment, an eyebrow raised before he flickers his gaze over my shoulder, “Hey, where’s Lance?” 

I smirk a bit and jut my thumb towards the doorway, “Went for a shower. He said he was gonna come and find you after to go explore the city some more.” 

“Oh, nice!” Hunk jumps up in excitement, nearly causing Pidge perched on his chair’s arm to topple. She shrieks as she wobbles and grabs onto his arm, shooting him a death glare once he’s up, to which Hunk smiles back sheepishly, “Oh, sorry.” He glances over at me and tilts his head questioningly, “You coming with?” 

I nod with a sheepish expression, “Yeah, if that’s cool with you.” 

“Pfft, you sure you don’t already have plans for what you’re doing tonight?” Pidge straightens her glasses and my entire face burns as red as my hair as she smirks in my direction, “Or  _ who  _ you’re-”

“Finish that sentence and see what happens,  _ I dare you. _ ” I growl with narrowed eyes. I can see Keith straighten from the other side of the chair but I can’t look in his direction to see his expression, it’ll only make me turn redder. Pidge immediately snickers in response but, thankfully, doesn’t finish.  _ You little gremlin. _

The doorway to the bridge opens and when I turn around I see Lance, freshly showered and beaming like a new paint job as he saunters in, “Alright team, who’s ready to hit the town?” 

“Yeah, just let me send this down to my panel in my hanger to be running while we’re out.” Pidge states as she taps on Hunk’s holographic screen with a few deft taps. 

Hunk whirls about with a beaming grin in Lance’s direction, “Okay, so since we checked out the labs and the capitol last night I was thinking tonight we head uptown and see what that one place was, with all the little lights and stuff around it. It looked kinda like a mini golf course, like those ones they have on boardwalks… which would be  _ so  _ weird if it was because can you imagine the Olkari playing  _ mini golf? _ ” __

Hunk looks over at me with a gentle giant gaze for my input, so with a warm grin I nod, “I’m with y’all wherever you decide to go.” 

“Hey Keith, Shiro, you guys should come with us.” Lance pipes up as Pidge rises from Hunk’s seat, he faces the pair in question with an excited wave of his hands, “It’ll be fun! We’ll check out the city, see some cool stuff, get that  _ team bonding _ you’re always talking about.” Lance beams with a knowing wink in Shiro’s direction, I snort and have to disguise my laugh as a cough at the last second with only minimal success. 

“Yeah, I think I’ll come.” Shiro replies with a slight smile, his arms dropping to his sides where he was standing like a statue by the doorway, “If nothing else to provide some supervision. Ryner told me about what happened at the capitol building.” 

Hunk and Pidge’s eyes widen and immediately they hold up their hands in surrender, on queue they both speak, “It was Lance’s fault!” 

Lance gasps in betrayal and shouts, “It totally  _ was not! _ ”

“Do I wanna know?” I raise an eyebrow as they begin to walk towards the door, Hunk gives me a deft  _ absolutely not  _ jerk of his head before he ducks out. Pidge flashes a sneaky grin and wiggles her eyebrows at me as she also turns to follow after him. 

“You coming, Keith?” Shiro asks with a glance over my shoulder. When I turn about face I see him standing with his arms crossed, looking a bit uncomfortable as his gaze flickers from his shoes to his left side, pensive and unsure.

“Yeah, no, you’re  _ coming. _ ” Lance declares for the world to hear, Keith blinks stupidly as he throws an arm across his tense shoulders and pulls him towards the doorway, “If this place does end up being minigolf, I need you to be there so I can take you  _ down _ .” 

Keith flickers his wide eyes at Shiro, at me, before they settle on Lance with more or less an expression of confusion, but ultimately acceptance of his fate, “I guess I’ve got nothing better to do-”

“That’s right you don’t! Except for me kicking your butt at alien minigolf,  _ Mullet! _ ” Lance states with a hand ruffling Keith’s mentioned hair, he growls and shoves his hands away but there’s a genuine spark of light in his eyes that makes my pulse stutter out of time, competitive yet also innately childlike, enthusiastic and open. 

Shiro chuckles from beside me as we head down the Castle halls, Pidge and Hunk leading the pack to the surface projector. After a moment Pidge whirls about and raises an eyebrow to address the group, “I’m not so sure that the Olkari will have  _ minigolf _ like we’re thinking of. They’re an advanced society that can change the shape of material around them at their whim, I doubt that they’d have something so…  _ normal _ .” 

“I wouldn’t write it off so quickly.” Hunk replies, speaking with smooth movements of his hands, “You never know what kind of things are similar and what things are different. Like that friend juice stuff, for example,  _ we  _ know it as alcohol, but for them it’s something different, even though at its base it’s the same.” 

Lance unloops his arm from around Keith’s shoulders to scratch his chin, “So, like how some people say  _ tomayto  _ and others say  _ tomahto _ ?” Hunk pauses before he nods at him with a  _ guess so  _ shrug. 

I can’t help but curl my nose as I retort, “Who the fuck says  _ tomahto _ ?” 

“I think only Europeans say it like that.” Pidge tilts her head to the side with a pensive expression as we enter the hanger, her hands shoved into the front of her sweatshirt pockets, “And some people from East Asia.” 

“That’s  _ bologna,  _ I know a guy at the Garrison who say  _ tomahto. _ ” Lance blows a raspberry dismissively, pausing after a moment with his eyebrows furrowing before he mutters, “Though, he  _ is  _ from Italy…” He glances over at Shiro, turning about to walk backwards in the middle of the hanger to look at him, “What do you think?”

Shiro brings up the surface projector with a tap on the holographic panel by the doorway, after a moment he turns to Lance, shrugging a bit with a sheepish expression, “I think it just depends on what you heard growing up. If people said  _ tomayto _ , then that’s how you said it. Same for  _ tomahto _ .” 

I tilt my head to the side as we board the projector, offering my two cents with a raised finger, “Well I think  _ tomayto  _ is best for people with American accents because of the long  _ ‘a’ _ , like in aunt. It keeps similar pronunciations similar, you know?”

Hunk looks at me incredulously for a moment before he verbally blinks, “Do you mean  _ ant  _ or  _ awnt _ ?” The doors to the projector close and we begin to descend, he waves his hands enigmatically as if gesturing to a museum display, “Like, the little animals who like to steal crumbs, or your mom and dad’s sisters?” 

I shrug a bit with crossed arms, “I say them the same.” 

Pidge looks at me incredulously with a sudden gasp, “What, no way! Saying  _ ant  _ instead of  _ awnt _ is so confusing, and it makes you sound like… southern.”

Lance glances over at Pidge with a snort, “Pidge, he  _ is  _ southern.”

I can’t help it, I outright  _ guffaw  _ at this. “Oh,  _ oh honey,  _ no I am  _ not _ . I’m from  _ Northern  _ Virginia, the part of the south that doesn’t think it’s actually a part of the south because it’s by DC. I’m about as southern as Keith.” I jut a thumb in his direction and flash him a quick smile to which Keith huffs, crossing his arms a bit with a classical, resting scowl; the doorway to the projector opens once it stills and we spill out into Olkari air. 

Night has begun to fall in earnest, the shadows are long and stars are beginning to peek out, the main light is coming from the leftover bloody spray above the deep maroon trees and the olive lights of the city proper below the platform the Castle rests upon.  _ I don’t think I’ll ever get over how beautiful the sky is here. _

“You said you wanted to go to someplace specific, Hunk,” Shiro begins with a strangely matter of fact tone for the situation, cocking an eyebrow over at the other with a gesture with his chin, “Do you remember where it is?”

“Uh…” Hunk pauses, turning around in circles about three times before he starts with a beaming nod, “Yeah! This way.” He marches with purpose off to the right, away from the construction site and towards the heart of the city, or where I can guess the heart is considering that that’s where the majority of light is coming from, and we follow suit.

Lance speaks up after a minute as we follow Hunk down a ramp, “Hold on, real quick, backing up, Will, how are you not southern? You say  _ y’all _ !”

I narrow my eyes at him accusingly and enunciate my words with snappy gestures in the night air, “First of all, no accent. Second of all, don’t you try and tell me that ‘you all’ is a better alternative, that’s such a hassle! It makes more sense to just lump it together, otherwise you get an unnatural hitch when you’re talking. That’s like saying ‘you are’ all the time instead of you’re. It’s quicker!” 

“Okay, so begs the question,” Pidge pipes up, pushing her glasses up her face by scrunching her nose, “What makes someone southern? Is it simply where they are born, or is it the cultural embodiment? Or both?” 

“I think it’s both.” We blink in surprise as Shiro is the first to answer. He flashes a grin to his right where Keith walks at his side, “Otherwise you  _ would  _ be considered southern.” 

Keith flushes a bit red and I can’t help but raise an eyebrow incredulously, “What? Seriously?” He meets my gaze evenly and my pulse stammers, clearing my throat I continue, “Can you uh… elaborate?” 

Shiro gives Keith a slightly goading smirk, making Keith visibly tense like water poured on a shirt during subzero temperatures. After a moment Keith huffs under his breath, “‘Cause I was born in Texas.” 

Lance snorts at this and claps a hand on his thigh, “ _ OH  _ yeah, okay then I agree, Keith is definitely not- wait, hold on, backup, were you just  _ born  _ in Texas? Or were you technically raised there, too?” Keith nods to the second half of Lance’s question without a change in expression, though as I regard his visage closely in the olive city lights it appears carefully constructed to be placid rather than authentically so.

Immediately Hunk snickers, “What? Seriously? There’s no way! You’re so…” Hunk gestures towards Keith’s face with a large hand. Keith looks at him with a confused head tilt like a puppy hearing a siren for the first time and it makes my heart stammer violently out of my chest, it’s so  _ goddamn cute  _ I almost have a whole system failure. “... Pale.” Hunk finishes after a moment, flashing Keith an apologetic smile like he’s telling him something he might not want to hear. 

Keith raises an eyebrow stupidly before he hums, “... So?” 

Lance wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulders with a sharp laugh, “ _ So _ we can’t believe you can walk outside in the sun for five minutes and not get burnt like a lobster! And I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a lot of sun in Texas.” 

Hunk opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again before he mutters, “Uh, I don’t think lobsters really burn-”

“I think he means he turns as red  _ as  _ a lobster. From being burned.” Pidge elaborates helpfully with a crooked grin. Lance shoots her a vague look of generalistic pissivity. 

We descend further into the city down a series of ramps, following Hunk all the way down, and I can get a better look at the different buildings around us as we descend. 

I didn’t really look around all that much when I was walking from the construction site up to the Castle, I was caught up in my own head, but I was also coming from the  _ construction  _ site; this is the  _ city _ , and is much more visibly interesting. Each building is unique unto itself, made of a similar material but with wildly different shapes and architectural types that all somehow flow one into the other, one building into the next, enhancing each difference while also making the buildings appear uniform.  _ Huh. Guess they call the Olkari brilliant engineers for a reason. I can’t imagine any Earth architect able to do shit like this.  _

The ramps and roads are busy with Olkari, moving up and around and through buildings, streets, and alleyways that weave between them like a complex ant colony, as we move through ramps and walkways we’re seeing more and more Olkari traveling without pause, a few wave but don’t speak to us or approach us, which is incredible considering how strange it must be for them to see us walking around.  _ Or perhaps not strange at all, maybe they’re just busy. Or don’t care. Or maybe they all know we’re here so they’re just expecting to see us wandering? _

“I don’t burn.” Keith states simply without room for argument, his hands shoved into the pockets of his  _ ugly jacket _ and with his eyes forward now that Lance has let his arm drop from around his neck. 

Hunk raises an eyebrow incredulously, “Not even a little bit? You don’t even turn red? Or pink? Or start peeling? Or anything?”

Keith shakes his head, but after a moment Pidge turns to walk backwards slightly to flash the group a devilish smirk, “Oh, he  _ does _ turn red, but only when he’s looking at Will.” 

Immediate embarrassment flares across my features, without thinking I growl playfully and push on her shoulders, “You seriously can’t stay tamed, can you? Haven’t we been through enough embarrassment and shame today?”

“Absolutely not!” Pidge declares with a narrow eyed look thrown first in Keith’s slowly-turning-rosy expression then back to mine, “We had to deal with you two idiots being stupid and gay for  _ weeks _ . Oh,  _ and  _ the way we found out that you two are finally  _ not  _ being idiots was-”

“Oh crow, please, don’t remind me.” Hunk covers his face suddenly with his hands as we delve further into the city. Immediate, red flashes of shame bitch slap me in the face consecutively upon recollection of the moment. 

_ God. Why.  _

“I’m still a bit confused at what the heck Will could’ve been thinking about that got you guys so embarrassed.” Lance huffs with his arms crossed, flickering his gaze between Hunk and Pidge accusingly as if goading them to answer him. 

I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes, practicing some deep breathing before I can speak without stammering, “Hunk, please tell me we’re close.” 

“Yes!” Hunk quickly shouts back even though he’s just in front of me, I can hear the discomfort radiating in his voice and internally I wince.  _ I don’t think it would matter if the thoughts were mine or anyone else’s, having someone else’s sexual memories shown to you is a HELL of an experience if you aren’t expecting it, I think it may have even been worse because it was all going on in our heads; it must’ve felt a whole lot more personal and intimate rather than if you accidentally stumbled upon a couple fucking in a bathroom stall or something. Fucking hell. I’m sorry, Hunk, I really am. GOD if I could take it back- _

Lance pouts, not ready to drop it yet he tries one last time, “But-!”

“Do you  _ really  _ wanna know, Lance?” I shiver at the huskiness of Keith’s voice and an immediate flash of heat zaps up my spine, when I look over at him I can see that he isn’t  _ purposefully  _ dropping his voice or anything, his expression is no different than usual, but I think now looking at the set in his brow and his jaw that it must’ve been exasperation in his tone that I heard. Or at least an attempt at it. But my  _ gay ass  _ certainly did not think so, it sounded suggestive as  _ fuck _ and suddenly the chill of the night air seems to do nothing but steam the skin on the back of my neck.  _ Fuck. I’m too gay for this.  _

Lance looks back at Keith and something hesitates in his expression, I notice a red climb from his neck to his ears, and after a moment he waves his hands with a slight laugh, “Alright, you know what, fair enough, fine then. Keep your secrets.” 

Hunk suddenly starts as we round about a shallow building, pointing down the street past a couple of Olkari with a hovering platter between them and at the far corner building, “Hey, there it is!” 

Upon seeing it, I get now why Hunk would’ve thought the place looked like a minigolf course. It’s got mounds of glittering material in regular intervals around it and within are flashing lights, pedestals, moving parts, and overhanging architecture that looks like those tacky minigolf courses they have around old beachside resorts, save they are all in shades of Olkari metallic green. As we approach I can see past the surrounding mounds that there are small Olkari within, at least they appear smaller in comparison to the other Olkari we’ve seen, and they’re bearing tall, spindly sticks with a crescent on the end. As we approach I see one of them bend at the waist, putting the crescent end of the thin stick onto what looks like an oblong hockey puck, and with a shove outward the puck oscillates, moving around the pen they are within until it slides into a small, puck sized tunnel within a metal flashing sign of something in Olkari. The collected aliens make vague warbling sounds as they move on to another part of the space that we cannot see from the outside. 

Pidge grabs Hunk’s shoulder and steps onto his thigh, using him as a perch to look over the area. Hunk doesn’t seem to be off put by this, he merely keeps a hand on the back of her sweatshirt to make sure she doesn’t fall as Pidge scans the zone, after a moment abruptly she declares, “I think this is, in concept, like minigolf, except with like… slides.”

“Yeah,” I mutter in agreement as Pidge hops down, gesturing towards the space where the Olkari were with a jut of my thumb, “Those look like shuffleboard tangs, but the pucks are like… long.”

Lance blinks at me stupidly, “They look like  _ what now? _ ”

“Shuffleboard tangs.” I answer simply. Upon seeing him staring at me with exactly zero comprehension I grin crookedly, “You know, like the sticks you use to play shuffleboard? They’re called tangs.” 

“What the crow is a shuffleboard?” Hunk asks incredulously, looking at me with narrowed eyes of complete confusion. 

Keith answers for me, his arms are crossed over his chest and his expression is even, “It’s like ice curling but on the ground.” I raise an eyebrow at him curiously, internally wondering  _ how the hell he knew that because I only know about shuffleboard from camp _ but I don’t get the chance to question him about it as he gestures offhandedly towards the course, “How are we even going to get in there? We don’t have any money.”

Pidge scoffs as she adjusts her glasses with a cocky smirk, “Oh please, we’re the  _ Paladins of Voltron _ . I’m sure they’ll let us in.”

Shiro furrows his eyebrows a bit at this, looking over at her with crossed arms, “I don’t think that we should-” 

Lance groans loudly and interrupts him before he can begin his parental lecture, “Aww, come  _ on,  _ this isn’t a school field trip, Shiro! You gotta let loose, relax! We’re the defenders of the universe,  _ and  _ we helped them to drive the Galra off their planet, I think they’ll be okay with us playing some alien minigolf for free.” He flashes a smirk over at our collective before he runs a hand through his hair, “Just gotta play it up.” 

Without another word Lance turns and marches into the facility beneath an archway under a mound, disappearing from sight. We all look at each other with wide eyes and immediately follow after him before he embarrasses us all. 

We needn’t have bothered with the discussion as it seems because there isn’t a soul in sight within. The tangs are lined up on the walls and a trough of the strangely long pucks sits next to it, already waiting to be used. Lance turns in circles as we follow behind him, looking at the tangs and pucks then looking at us before he shrugs and grabs one of each, heading through a tunnel to the left and beneath a dark archway to open, lime green light beyond. I furrow my eyebrows, pausing only briefly to grab a puck and a tang as well before I follow after him cautiously, when I turn the corner I see him standing in an open aired room with his pole against the ground, his eyes narrowed at the far wall where there’s a narrow slot at its base, like in ice hockey machines. In between us and that wall is a complex series of gears on the floor as purposeful barriers, looping archways overtop of some areas to reduce visibility. 

“Move it! I’ve so got this.” Lance and I stumble aside as Pidge barrels between us with a tang held aloft like a jousting lance, she throws down the oblong puck onto the ground at her feet and then starts to swivel around it, looking at different angles from above before dropping to her knees, using the tang as a straight edge. The others fall in behind us as Lance leans on his stick and inspects the puck in his hand closely, his eyebrows furrowed before he points it out to me with a perplexed look, “Is yours moving?” 

I blink and look down at the puck I’d grabbed with fresh interest. It’s smooth like glass and rounded all about it, making it seem less like a puck and more like a skipping stone. I look at it closely, searching for any signs of movement when suddenly I feel it jolt beneath my fingertips, like feeling your own pulse for the first time, on instinct I drop it with a sharp, _ “What-the-fuck!” _ As soon as the “puck” hits the floor it suddenly begins to glide, I leap out of its way as it begins to wiggle and wobble like a sentient centipede in my direction, immediately I get behind Lance with both hands braced on his shoulders, shouting, “Fuck that! Fuck that! Nope, no thanks! I do  _ not  _ fuck with that!”

Lance blinks at me stupidly before his puck too begins to move and he doesn’t fuck with it either, as he immediately yelps, drops it, and dodges backwards when his puck and mine wiggles in our direction. He nearly barrels past me as he hides behind an adorably confused Shiro with wide eyes and a startled finger pointed at the pucks,  _ “They’re alive?!”  _

Pidge glances over at us where she was kneeling next to her puck with a raised eyebrow and as if on queue her puck also springs to life, it wiggles and glides onto her arm and that’s when I can see that there are small legs underneath it, barely the size of needles, and upon feeling the creature on her Pidge immediately shrieks and leaps backwards like a frightened cat spotting a cucumber.

Hunk looks at the moving pucks and makes a soft, pensive noise, tilting his head to the side with a raise in his brow, “I don’t think it is.” He reaches down and picks up one of the pucks, it writhes in his grasp but not any more so than it was on the floor, like a roomba. He flips it upside down and investigates its belly where the millions of little legs are coming from before he nods, “Yeah, this is robot, it’s got gears in its sockets.” 

I let out a slight breath of relief and cross my arms, looking down at my puck that I’d dropped, “That is the kind of surprise that I do  _ not  _ appreciate.” Keith snorts and when I look over at him with an accusing glare he meets my gaze with a crooked smirk, one that sends a hot flash across my face.  _ Ah, yes, right, I’m gay. Thanks for the reminder. _

Lance seems to have recovered, as he comes a bit around Shiro to investigate the wiggling puck in Hunk’s hands. Pidge’s puck has started sliding away, bouncing against the wall of this first area, and upon noticing this Pidge goes to chase after it with a cry, “Nice! An added challenge! … Get  _ back here! _ ” She dives on top of where the puck is and just barely grabs its back before it wiggles away from her, then she pulls herself to her feet with the puck held in both of her hands like a misbehaving infant. 

“So how are we gonna do this?” Keith asks with a raised eyebrow and a business-like attitude, his arms crossed over his chest with a puck in his hands and a tang in the crook of his elbow, he’s in such a Keith-like stance that I almost want to laugh.  _ Mr. Brooding Wonder.  _

Lance snatches his puck back from Hunk, pointing it threateningly at Keith with a cocky grin, “Just like minigolf. Least amount of hits into the slot is the winner.” He points to it on the far side of the open aired room, on the other side next to the slot I can see a pathway leading upward, presumably to the next section, or so I can imagine.

Hunk looks at the worming puck in Lance’s hand before he makes eye contact with me across from him, with a slow grin he laughs as he holds his puck aloft in his hands, “Then let’s go!  _ Play ball! _ ”

… 

It takes us at least a half hour to get past the first course because of the wiggling pucks. It makes it impossible to line up a shot, but we quickly learn that they don’t move when they’re touching the tang, so that eliminates  _ that _ obstacle, that is until we realize that that doesn’t work once we actually push it onto the course. They wiggle about, bouncing off of walls, they don’t stop moving and habitually they get in each other’s way, so we decide one person goes until they get their puck in the slot and  _ then  _ we move on to the next person because of the chaos that having two people trying to go at the same time provided. 

The best player is Pidge, hands down. After the first game she figured out the system and habitually gets one or two shots from push to slot with her puck and it’s not even a competition at that point with her, at least until Shiro learns the tricks. Then it gets serious. Pidge immediately goes cutthroat, shooting Shiro dirty looks and blowing raspberries while taking more and more time to line up her shots, and although Shiro is smiling and laughing light heartedly I can see the spark of competition bright in his grayed umber eyes as the two square off. Pidge keeps religious track of the score on her Altean wristband, that I now have learned is connected to the Castle computers because it looks just like the computers in our Voltron suits, all the way down to the clock in the bottom right hand corner of the hologram.

It takes no time at all for Lance and Keith to go head to head, Lance goads Keith on while he’s playing and Keith smirks when Lance is struggling, he never teases him back  _ explicitly  _ but it’s definitely implied and Lance knows it; they’re in a competition with nothing but each other and it’s honestly so fucking  _ funny  _ to watch, especially when Keith sneezes and messes up a shot and Lance laughs so hard that Keith ends up having to push him to get him to stop, resulting in both of them tumbling to the ground, I was almost in tears. Hunk and I are honestly just along for the ride, we are _ losing our minds _ watching the competitions play out and we simply play to conclude our turns so we could watch the madness continue to unfold without bothering in trying to win, because who cares about winning when you’ve got a  _ show  _ to watch?

“Where am I at now, Pidge?” Lance demands after he extracts his wiggling puck from the slot, resting his arms on her head and perching his chin on top to look down at her wrists. 

Pidge is unamused, she ducks and nearly sends Lance reeling as she reports, “Three ahead of Keith.”  _ ‘Cause she knows that that’s what he cares about.  _

Lance laughs maniacally with a victorious whoop, whirling towards Keith with a wicked smirk, “That’s  _ right  _ I am! Get'cha head in the game, Kogane! Oh, hey, that rhymed…”

“My head  _ is  _ in the game!” Keith grumbles with a grouchy glare, periodically tapping his puck to his tang to keep it from moving around in his grasp. 

“Maybe you just need some incentive.” Pidge offers helpfully, suddenly her gaze locks on mine and she grins with utmost evil intent. 

I shoot her a glare and huff indignantly, “Don’t  _ objectify  _ me! I’m not a prize!” She doesn’t reply, she just raises her hands in surrender with a  _ well don’t look at me  _ expression before she turns away to craft a strategy for the new course we have arrived to.

Hunk turns his head to the side as we cluster together, letting out a soft sigh, “You know, I wish there was some kind of background music going on here or something. It’s kind of eerily quiet without you guys shouting.” 

I roll my head back and let out a loud groan, “ _ GOD  _ what I wouldn’t  _ give _ for some music.” The others look at me with raised eyebrows of confusion and after a moment I smile sheepishly, “Right now, yes. But also, in general…” 

“I mean, I never really listened to any music outside of parties and stuff, especially at the Garrison.” Lance offers with a shrug, tilting his head to the side as he breaks into a smirk, “And I don’t think that that’s the kind of music we wanna hear playing alien minigolf.” 

“What, the ones full of uh… Oh, Keith said it best, what was…  _ ‘bass and sex innuendos’ _ ?” Pidge offers as she kneels with her head to the ground, examining the angle with her tang next to her puck, “I don’t see why we couldn’t listen to it right now. What’s wrong with a little bit of  _ boom boom boom  _ or whatever while we’re playing?” 

Hunk shudders, shaking his head with a pout, “That’s got to have been one of the foulest songs ever, and I only heard the one line!”

I can’t help but laugh, and I mean full on laugh, head thrown back with my hands on my knees and everything. Once I’m able to recollect myself, I wipe a tear from my eye with a few remaining giggles before I speak, “ _ Oh Hunk _ , you sweet summer baby, that song is absolutely  _ nothing _ . There are far more explicit songs out there.” 

“Yeah, ever heard  _ Deepthroat _ ?” Pidge retorts offhandedly. 

Shiro starts at this, his eyes flying wide as he looks at Pidge with a scandalized expression before he grumbles with a rhetorical question, “Matt really is a terrible influence on you, isn’t he?”

Pidge grins back up at him with a wicked smirk, “Not at all.  _ I’m  _ the Corruptor.”

I curl my nose a bit and shake my head, “Well, yeah,  _ Deepthroat’s _ explicit but I mean  _ good  _ explicit songs. That song’s utter trash.” 

Pidge holds up a finger towards me and we all go silent as she takes her shot. Her puck oscillates in a wild curve, bouncing off the wall of the decorative obstacles before it just barely bounces out of the corner of the slot, Pidge internally swears as she has to take a second hit to tap it into the slot. After a moment she stands upright and writes her score down before she tosses a look over at me, “What’ve you got against  _ Deepthroat _ ?”

“What do you mean  _ what do I got _ ?” I huff while crossing my arms, “I’m a gay guy. A gay  _ trans  _ guy, that song makes my blood curdle.” I tilt my head to the side and immediately go off the verbal rails, excitement breaching my veins with the subject of music, “Besides, it’s such a  _ bad  _ raunchy song. Like who the hell finds  _ “Mouth wide open like I was at the dentist”  _ at  _ all  _ appealing? That’s one of the worst metaphors like… ever. You can have an explicit song just as raunchy as Deepthroat but that actually sounds sexy, you know?” 

“... You’ve done some thinking about this.” Hunk points out after a moment with an eyebrow raised at me, his cheek resting on his tang like a tired pool player.

Slight embarrassment wells in my throat, I pluck a random excuse from my streaming thoughts, “Well, yeah, music’s my thing, I think about it all the time.” I mutter.

“Alright then, with all of your  _ musical experience  _ and stuff, what’s the sexiest song you’ve ever heard?” Lance smirks wickedly at me with an eyebrow raised challengingly. I don’t fall for the bait, instead brushing him off with an eye roll and a dismissive scoff. “OH, you’re thinking of one, aren’t you?” Lance prods, poking me in the ribs with his tang, I smack it away with a laugh as he continues with a wicked smirk, “What’s the matter? You all  _ shy  _ and  _ embarrassed  _ all of a sudden?”

I push on his shoulders playfully with a broad grin, “You have no idea the kind of powers you are tampering with,  _ McClain. _ ”

“Oh yeah?” Lance challenges, his expression is roguish and his smirk is crooked, “I bet I know dirtier songs than you could ever dream of!”

Pidge approaches and suddenly grins with a knowing, wicked glow in her hazel gaze before she speaks, “Well, there is one way to settle this…”

I wave my hands and cut her off, still laughing, “No,  _ no _ , no, we aren’t settling  _ anything  _ at an alien putt putt golf course.” 

“Alright, how about back at the Castle? When we can all escape if we so choose to?” Hunk offers with a sheepish expression, flickering his gaze between Lance, Pidge, and I nervously. 

“Seconded.” Shiro mutters under his breath as he lines up his shot with his puck. 

“What is there even to settle?” I huff, crossing my arms as I watch Shiro push his puck across the track, “What’re we gonna do? Compare?” One and a sink.

“Precisely.” I blink over at Pidge with wide, incredulous eyes as she beams at me with wicked, impish light in her eyes, “I propose you serenade each other with your filthiest songs, whoever gets the most uncomfortable wins.” 

I look at her with deadpan exhaustion as I grumble, “You really do just thrive on embarrassing others, don’t you?” 

Pidge doesn’t respond, she merely cackles. She stops when Shiro approaches her with one finger pointed up, indicating his score, and only then does her smirk fade to a competitive frown. Shiro grins.

“I’m in!” Lance reaches over and ruffles my hair as he steps up to the plate for his turn now that Shiro’s finished, “I have a big family with no verbal boundaries, you’re  _ so  _ going down. But after I finish beating Keith first.” 

Keith has his arms crossed without expression and without movement behind him, merely watching with a vaguely far away expression. Without much thought I reach over and gently push his bangs out of his face and tuck them behind his ear, Keith’s gaze snaps to mine in surprise as I flash him a smile, “You’re doing great.” 

Keith gives me an expression I don’t quite know what to do with, wide eyed, confused, and  _ fucking adorable _ , and I only break away from his violet hued gaze when Lance groans loudly as he hunts his wiggling puck down across the track, grumbling angrily under his breath, the most repeated word I hear is  _ pinga _ . 

As we progress down the track Shiro began to pull ahead of Pidge and Keith ahead of Lance, and neither of each pair is very happy about it. Hunk and I follow up behind with exchanged grins and bits of laughter as Pidge glares up at Shiro’s gentle smile or Keith and Lance almost literally butt heads in their go’s. By the time we’re finished Pidge had pulled just ahead of Shiro and between Lance and Keith, Keith won… by one point. 

“Okay, that’s practically a tie.” Lance proclaims with his hands thrown in the air back out on the street, huffing in indignation, “ _ One  _ point? Pfft! It’s probably just ‘cause my puck thing wiggled in and then  _ out  _ of the slot that one time, that was such a fluke-”

Keith suddenly grins wickedly, cocking an eyebrow at Lance as he rumbles, “ _ ‘Hey, I did something and you can’t handle it, I get it.’ _ ”

Lance shoots Keith a hardcore glare and looks about two seconds from pouncing upon him before Shiro intervenes, “Alright guys, that’s enough. It’s getting pretty late, I think it’s time we went back to the Castle for some rest.” 

We look at one another and make vague noises of agreement before we turn and walk together back down the street and up the ramps towards the Castle. Going up is a lot more physically intensive than going down, reducing some of our conversations, but not enough for Lance to continue adding  _ but’s _ to Keith’s victory. It’s frankly hilarious watching him go through the five stages of grief about losing putt putt to his ‘rival’.

By the time the Castle comes in view, Lance has internally moved on, instead he loops an arm over my shoulders, “Hey now, don’t think I haven’t forgotten our bet! We’re settling this as soon as we get to the lounge.” 

I blink at him stupidly for a solid ten seconds, “What?”

“Our bet!” Lance huffs, narrowing his eyes at me as he lets his arm drop, “I bet I can get you to blush like a daisy by singing you a dirty song.” 

“Oh.” I snort, covering my mouth with a hand to suppress the rising giggles before I manage to clear my throat, “Yeah, no. I don’t remember betting with you on that. What’s even the prize?”

Lance purses his lips for a moment, tilting his head to the side as we finally reach the top level of the building where the Castle is perched, offering with a slight shrug, “Pride?” 

Pidge hops on the train, still glowing from her victory at the puttputt course, “How about loser has to sprint around the Castle here screaming  _ ‘penis’  _ at the top of his lungs?” She gestures in a loop around the Castle where we stand at its base waiting for the surface projector, looking to us with a slight shrug of  _ got anything better? _

I snort and shake my head with a lazy smirk, “Yeah, no, I’m not doing that.” 

Lance perks and grips my shoulder tighter, “If you forfeit I immediately win!” He declares, looking around us with a suggestive eyebrow cocked at me. 

Competition sparks in my chest, I narrow my eyes at Lance as I consider it for a moment.  _ Who can get who uncomfortable first, huh? From singing a raunchy song?  _ My first and immediate thought crashes straight to Simon Curtis, and although my ears turn red just at the thought I know that that’s the song that will guarantee my victory.  _ It’s gay and explicit as fuck, and if I play it off right then I can have Lance turn into a blushing mess by the first chorus and end this quick. I can do this, I do music for theatre, this should be easy for me.  _

_ Maybe a little less easy with the others watching, but there’s no way in hell I’m sprinting around the Castle shouting anything. And I doubt that Lance can actually make me embarrassed without himself losing his shit in the process.  _ “You know what?” I raise my chin at Lance as the surface projector arrives, “You’re on.” 

_ “Oh crow.”  _ Hunk whispers in horror as we pile onto the surface projector, internally I start working myself up to getting into a mindset to take the psychological damage necessary to win this bet.  _ Christ, Lance really is good at sparking anyone’s competitive nature, isn’t he? No wonder he and Keith get so immediately down to fight at any given time.  _

Shiro lets out a weary sigh and pinches his brow, “Things never change, do they?” 

“My money’s on Lance getting Will to cave first.” Pidge declares, looking over at the others with a raised eyebrow in search for the opposition. 

I huff and shoot her a glare, internally I want to boast at how far spite has gotten me in the past but I decide to sit on my cards instead.  _ It’ll make my victory all the sweeter. Oh man, hold on, do I actually have the balls to do this?  _

“Doubt it.” Keith rumbles in response, much to my shock. I glance over at him with a raised eyebrow and he merely meets my gaze evenly without much expression, simply speaking in a purely matter of fact tone. 

Pidge looks at him with confusion as well, after a moment she smirks broadly and twists to face him fully, “Bet: loser has to wear their clothes inside out for the week.” 

“Done.” Keith nods simply and holds out a fist, Pidge wordlessly pounds it as the door to the surface projector opens.  _ Okay. Maybe I do have the balls to do this, if nothing else to prove Pidge wrong. Come on spite, take it away! _

“Uh, are you guys seriously gonna do this?” Hunk’s voice climbs to another octave in stress as we move together into the lounge, “Is this  _ really  _ where you’re gonna do? Like, maybe you should think about this-”

“I kind of want to see how this plays out.” Shiro admits, I blink at him incredulously to see him grin surprisingly impishly, a look so akin to Pidge’s that it’s a little uncanny.  _ Well now there’s definitely no backing out now. _

I take a settling breath, getting mentally in the zone.  _ I can take whatever Lance can throw at me I got this, I got this. To be honest nothing will make me uncomfortable unless he like… intimately describes vaginas or something, because I can’t  _ **_stand_ ** _ that. Too much past body dysmorphia and all. But honestly I don’t think he could either, so I think I may be safe on that front. Plus he’s straight, so assuming heteroeroticism will definitely make this less difficult. Honestly, this part I’m not all that stressed about, I’m worried that  _ **_I’m_ ** _ going to get all blushy when it’s  _ **_my_ ** _ turn, so I should get this part out of the way quick so I can focus on that. And if I can’t, then there’s no use stressing about it, right?  _ “You go first, Lance.” I say once we’re in the lounge, I move and sit on the floor in the middle of the circular couch with my legs crossed under me, cocking an eyebrow up at him, “Hit me with your best shot, sharpshooter.” 

“Oh, I  _ will _ .” Lance states confidently, moving to sit across from me on the floor as well. The others gather on the couches, to my dismay I see Keith sit in my peripheral to my right. Fortunately he’s just out of my line of sight enough that I won’t accidentally make eye contact with him because that  _ will  _ break my resolve, but I can still  _ see  _ him which makes things that much harder. Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro collect mostly behind me, I can see Hunk next to Keith just barely out of the corner of my eye.

Lance clears his throat dramatically and immediately I can see the red beginning to bloom by his ears, spreading from his neck. I smirk with a raised eyebrow at him, intentionally trying to look at coy as possible to get him as  _ on edge  _ and  _ uncomfortable  _ as possible but he isn’t really looking at me, I can tell his gaze is locked on my forehead. “Don’t look away.” I threaten with narrowed eyes, suddenly upping the stakes in my own head, “Look away and you lose.” 

“Aww, come on!” Lance huffs indignantly but to my surprise he doesn’t argue; he complies, meeting my gaze head on and my throat constricts.  _ Fuck. Why did I say that? Eye contact is already so hard. Oh man. It’s okay, I’ve got the balls for this. Deep breaths.  _ When Lance starts he uses his hands like he’s drumming in the air, I can tell he’s mentally focusing on the movement and maintaining the eye contact over anything else as he starts grinning in preemptive victory,  _ “Dirty mind, dirty mind, d-d-d-dirty mind~”  _

Immediately I can’t help but smirk to myself when I recognize the tune.  _ Wow,  _ **_that’s_ ** _ the song he thinks is the filthiest? Oh wow, I really am going to absolute destroy him my time around.  _

“Oh crow.” Hunk whimpers over my shoulder as Lance launches into the song in earnest.   
_ “I tried to leave my house but she won’t let me out, _ _   
_ _ Deadbolts locked, got me strapped to the couch, _ _   
_ _ She’s got a dirtier mind than my mouth, _ _   
_ __ I hate to say it, but the more you fuck, the better for your health.” 

“Oh, nasty.” I croon with a crooked smirk, firmly staring directly into the baby blues of Lance’s eyes, the longer the seconds drag on the easier it is thanks to diving into a headspace that’s fueled by spite and competition. 

Lance narrows his eyes at me and continues with far more determination than before, but with also far more red spreading across his face,    
_ “She wants me at the party, she wants me at the mall, _ _   
_ _ She wants me even in the bathroom stall, _ _   
_ _ Now, hey you, I know what you gonna do,  _ _   
_ _ And hey you, I wanna be the person that you do it to, _ _   
_ _ I wanna be the person you do, that you do, that you do, that you do- _ _   
_ __ Dirty mind, dirty mind, she just wants to fuck me all the time-” 

“You look like a cherry.” I snicker, briefly suppressing a laugh as I watch his expression but he doesn’t relent, he merely glares at me harder and snaps his fingers to keep his own time, he’s doing surprisingly well in terms of intonation and tune and I find my music loving ass is focusing on that far more than the words, or maintaining a coy attitude, or remembering that I’m supposed to be not getting embarrassed. Which isn’t hard. The song’s really not as filthy as I was getting ready for. 

Lance curls his nose at me and seems to forge on with nothing but a desire to get me to break, he leans forward and grabs the front of my shirt like he’s going to throttle me and I can hear Pidge snickering wildly over my shoulder as he keeps on going. 

_ “Of course I’m not mad about too much sex, _ _   
_ _ I’m just mad ‘cause I’ve gotta get home by six, _ _   
_ _ Just because you learned a new position- _ _   
_ __ Fuck it, let’s do it in the kitchen-” 

_ “Oh my crow, Lance!”  _ Hunk gasps with a soft sound like he just clapped his hands over his ears. Lance doesn’t even pause, he plows on while glaring at me fully and I can’t help but smirk up at him as his fingers dig into the fabric of my shirt. My face is as red as a rose and frankly it’s not because of the song but because of how  _ flustered  _ Lance is getting, and how fucking  _ tough it is  _ to maintain eye contact with someone for an extended period of time…  _ even more so  _ in such a context. 

_ “‘Cause she wants me at the party, she wants me at the mall,  _ _   
_ _ She even wants me in the bathroom stall. _ _   
_ _ Now, hey you, I know what you gonna do,  _ _   
_ _ And hey you, I wanna be the person that you do it to, _ _   
_ _ I wanna be the person you do, that you do, that you do, that you do- _ _   
_ __ Dirty mind, dirty mind, she just wants to fuck me all the time-”

He stops when the song is done and I continue to look at him with a straight face, I’m  _ shocked  _ I haven’t broken eye contact yet because of how flustered I feel but  _ I did it.  _

He huffs and pushes on my shoulders with an indignant whine, “Come on, you didn’t even flinch!” 

“You seriously think that that song’s dirty?” I counter, shifting upwards to sit more forward, resting my hands on my knees to wipe the sweat off on the material, “Prepare to lose.” 

“Oh please,  _ bring it on! _ ” Lance huffs, crossing his arms and looking at me with a forced frown, his eyes narrowed and locked on mine, filled with challenge. 

_ Ah yes, my time has come. I’m about to end this man’s whole career.  _

“Just remember that you  _ asked  _ for this, and this was all  _ your  _ idea.” I leave one last caveat, to which Lance merely sticks his tongue out at me. I channel all of my natural theatrical energy that comes with the gay and force it into a husky undertone that’s just below normal speaking level, dropping my chin to fix Lance with a hooded gaze. 

_ “This is no way into my heart, into my head, _ _   
_ _ Into my brain, into none of the above, _ _   
_ _ It’s just a way to unleash these feelings deep inside of me, _ _   
_ __ The black spark that I just seem to love.” 

“Oh  _ no _ .” I hear Shiro whisper just barely under his breath from behind me and I almost lose my shit right there, a thousand thoughts swirl by of  _ oh so you know this song do you  _ and  _ holy shit I forgot the whole team is watching right now, fuck I gotta focus and keep up the performance, if I do this right I’m gonna make Lance melt into a puddle before the chorus is up and that’s gonna be fucking awesome.  _

I smirk a bit and narrow my eyes at Lance as I continue to croon in the same challenging tone. 

_ “We can get a little crazy just for fun, just for fun,  _ _   
_ _ Don’t even try to hold back, just let go.  _ _   
_ _ Tie me up and take me over ‘til you’re done, ‘til I’m done,  _ _   
_ __ You’ve got me feeling like I’m ready to blow.” 

“This doesn’t sound all  _ that _ bad…” Pidge mumbles under her breath and this is the part where my voice hitches in my throat. Fire burns on my face and I feel the words on the tip of my tongue, I want to close my eyes so I can drive it out but I don’t wanna lose, I don’t want to  _ lose  _ and that’s what forces me to look Lance in the eye and whine the chorus with sensuality that comes from some dark place I didn’t know I had. 

_ “Push up to my body and sink your teeth into my flesh, _ _   
_ _ Then get, undressed, taste and taste, the flesh,  _ _   
_ _ Bite into me harder and sink your teeth into my flesh, _ _   
_ _ You’ll pass, the test, to taste and taste, the flesh,  _ _   
_ _ Hold me up against the wall,  _ _   
_ _ Give it ‘til I beg then give me some more,  _ _   
_ __ Make me bleed, I like it rough-” 

I don’t even get through the rest of the chorus because the results are so immediate. Lance plants his hands on his face and screeches, falling backwards onto his back and I can hear Pidge wildly laughing behind me, followed by Hunk’s unbridled shrieks of shame. I snort and laugh  _ hard _ , simply a release of the pent up nerves but basking in the victory I point at Lance’s fallen form and snicker in between loud laughs, “I  _ told  _ you! And you think  _ that’s  _ bad? That was just the  _ chorus! _ ” 

_ “I don’t wanna know what’s in the rest!” _ Hunk cries, when I turn about to look at him I can see he’s covering his ears with both of his hands and his eyes are squeezed shut like he’s watching a horror movie, Pidge is lying flat on the couch and holding her sides she’s laughing so hard, Shiro has his face half covered with a hand in a perpetual expression of tired, parental exhaustion and that just makes me laugh even  _ harder _ , I’m practically losing my shit as the room pulses with chaotic energy. 

That is until I look over and meet Keith’s gaze and my body  _ seizes _ at the look. He’s still with his arms crossed like a rigid statue but his eyes are wide and his entire face is  _ bright  _ red, I’m talking scarlet from forehead to neck, he looks like a taut spring that will erupt with any release of pressure. That makes me realize then just how I sounded, how I was  _ speaking _ , and  _ painful  _ embarrassment pulses through my veins to the point that I have to look away or risk combusting on the fucking  _ spot _ .  _ Oh geez. _

_ That kind of is a filthy song. _

“That was  _ horrible!! _ ” Lance screeches, ripping my gaze to him as he sits up from the floor like a zombie, “How could you  _ do this _ ?!” 

“I told you, it was your idea!” I snort in between sparse laughter before I move to stand upright, dusting my hands off before I hold out a hand to help him up, “Now come on, you’ve got a loser’s lap to do.” 

“Ugh,  _ nooooo _ .” Lance complains with a plaintive whimper but he inevitably caves, taking my hand to rise. His entire face is rosy and he can no longer meet my gaze and that makes me laugh even more. 

As I guide the poor boy to the hanger again I can hear Pidge speaking behind me, “... Okay, you win.” 

If it were possible for my face to turn any redder it would’ve when I heard Keith mumble softly, “... Yeah. Guess I did.”

_ Oh  _ **_God_ ** _ I’m gay. _

We take the ride down the surface projector while all in the vague stages of grief, Shiro has long been sitting on acceptance with the glaze over his eyes and the pinch of his brow between his two fingers and honestly that just makes the perpetual laugher racking my body continue on indefinitely, I don’t remember the last time I’ve laughed this hard and this much and Pidge is right there with me, it’s a wonderful high. Hunk eventually seems to recover, his face is  _ bright  _ red, visible even with the deep chestnut of his skin, but now with the incredulousness of the situation he too begins to laugh. Lance has recovered minutely by the time we make it back to the surface of Olkarion, he gives me an accusing look that I return with a beaming, innocent smile before he turns and breaks into a sprint, turning around the Castle. We watch him go, Pidge whoops and Hunk hollars, having officially overcome the initial secondhand embarrassment, and I quickly join in. 

After a few moments we can hear Lance’s battle cry,  _ “PEEEEEEEEENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSS” _ He comes barreling around from the other side and brakes hard when he’s back with us, his hands on his knees and his sides heaving with a rosy face for a whole new reason now. 

“Was it worth it?” Pidge asks me with a raised eyebrow and a tired, impish grin that radiates the chaotic energy the moment demands. 

Immediately I nod with a whistle, “Oh hell  _ yeah _ , it was  _ so _ worth it. That’ll teach you to bet against me,  _ Holt _ .” 

“Fool me once.” She grumbles with a finger raised in the air. 

Shiro lets out a soft, tired sigh as he ushers us back onto the surface projector, speaking in a parental and charismatic manner, “Now if you’ve all had  _ enough _ , it’s time to head to bed. We need to keep up our strength.” 

“I don’t know, I kinda wanna hear the rest of the song.” Pidge teases, to which Lance and Hunk both synonymously shout,  _ “NO.”  _

I cackle with a broad, wicked smile, a strange energy coursing in my veins that makes me laugh all over again despite how much my cheeks hurt and my sides ache. 

_ Well, this is certainly one way to end the night.  _

_ God I love these chucklefucks.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Paladin's first day on Olkarion has had its ups and downs, with several manners of interpersonal revelations brought to the forefront of the other's minds beyond just the impending showdown with Zarkon. WIll is left trying to figure out how to do his part to help the team but he's struggling; sometimes when you focus too hard on a task the more impossible it becomes to perform, and what the rest of the team knows, chiefly Lance, is that what you need in times like these is a break. And Lance knows just how to do it.  
> *Warning: NSFW Language at the end, will make sense when it comes*


	16. Sunshine and Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Paladins return to the Castle after a night full of rambunctious bets and cutthroat alien putt putt, but Will's far to hyped up to sleep. So much had happened with the team essentially coming to terms with his blossoming relationship with Keith that he hadn't actually been given a chance to actually check in with him, which is something that Will feels he needs to do after his conversation with Allura. It's easy for his thoughts to motorboat Will in ice cold waters, and that's exactly what tends to happen when Will gets scared when experiencing something new. And he's not alone; Keith isn't as immune to fear as he portrays.  
> What's new isn't what's bad, however. Especially the ground Will now finds himself on with Keith. They just have to be careful as they navigate the foreign waters, together.

I’m _way_ too hyped up to sleep, I feel like my energy is simply bouncing off my skin and onto the walls, what’s more is as we walk back into the Castle I know that I’m not the only one. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are so loud as a collective, joking, talking, threatening, laughing, that it drowns my thoughts into a dizzy white noise like a coconut smoothie. Shiro looks tired, not so much in terms of needing to sleep but most certainly in terms of our shenanigans, and frankly I don’t blame him. I’m not sure I can even look him in the eye after _that_ fiasco, I’m frankly amazed that I didn’t melt into a mess of melted cara-Will on the spot but the glow of victory does tend to mitigate that a bit, especially since Lance keeps giving me a narrow eyed look of general pissivity that makes me grin back all the more. I notice movement in my peripheral and when I look over I see Keith duck out of our group and down the hall to the left, away from the residency hall, and for a moment I find myself hesitating. _I wonder where he’s going. Is he not tired? I suppose not. Looking at the others I don’t think they noticed him leave… is it weird that I want to follow him? No, not at all, I’m gay for Keith and the others know that, so if I wanna go see him - I should chase after before he gets away and I lose him._

“I’ll be seeing y’all, night, guys.” I wave dismissively over my shoulder as I head after the direction where Keith disappeared into, I only barely hear Pidge say something snide but incoherent. Keith is just at the end of the hall with his arms hanging at his sides and he pauses when he hears my voice, turning around right as I’m catching up to him. He blinks at me with an owlish gaze for a moment as I approach, so I greet him with a smile, “Hey. Sorry, don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

“Uh… no.” Keith mutters a bit sheepishly in response, his eyes are a steely, deep, almost blackened blue in the nighttime atmosphere of the halls and his expression is hard to read, “I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. I’m just uh… not tired yet.” 

I flash him a grin with my hands in my pockets, “Oh, cool, me either.” 

Keith’s expression remains resolute and unreadable, for a sudden and chilling moment I wonder whether I’m intruding, or if Keith’s too tired or polite to say no to my presence, so with a slight aside I clear my throat and flicker my gaze to the floor, “If you wanna be left alone I get that, too, you know. I just wanted to um… spend some uh… time… with… you…” I bite my lip, my face turning a brighter and brighter red as the words slip out and internally I clamp on my tongue to prevent anything else from spilling out because _Jesus Christ, you have no business sounding so clingy. What the hell, Will._

Keith doesn’t seem put off, just surprised. “Oh.” He clears his throat and looks off to the side, rubbing the back of his neck suddenly as he stumbles over his words, “I mean uh… Yeah, okay. I’d do that. I mean, I’d _like_ to do that.” He huffs and curls his nose a bit and despite the dark I can see the scarlet spreading across his face, it marginally increases my self esteem and confidence while also making my gay feelings flourish like _nothing else_. 

“ _God_ , you’re so cute.” I snicker after a moment, Keith’s face almost immediately flushes an even darker red and his gaze zeroes in on the floor. Spurred with a random, far-fetched idea I reach out and tug on his jacket sleeve, walking backwards down the hall as I cock an eyebrow in his direction, “If you’ve got no plans, let’s go to the bridge.”

Keith blinks at me in confusion and follows after me with a lost expression, “Why?”

“So we can see the stars!” I answer with a bright beam in his direction, cocking an eyebrow after a moment with a coy smirk as I let go of his sleeves, “Unless you wanna go beat up robots on the training deck. I know you _love_ that.” 

Keith makes a soft noise in the back of his throat that I can’t quite determine the nature of, it’s something between a choke and a cough that got caught in between each other and simply put it makes his entire face turn just as red as before, and I’m not quite sure how to take that or how to deal with it. But at the end of it he follows me without a word, merely walking in step with me as we go. 

It only takes a second to get there. The bridge is dark, the Balmeran crystal overhead hums and casts the room in a dull turquoise but the primary light is coming from the stars beyond the glass ahead. I glance over at Keith with a raised eyebrow as I move towards the front, rounding Allura’s circle until I’m standing at Coran’s station. I feel Keith moving to stand beside me as I look out beyond and suddenly almost all of my confidence dies in the moment and I resort to my natural gay panicking state, I find myself muttering under my breath absentmindedly to fill the silence, “Lots of stars.” Keith hums in response and when I glance over to look at him internally I balk at how _beautiful_ he is, standing like a fallen angel looking up at the heavens he fell from, the night seems to make his hair melt and his skin glow and by _God_ I’m gay. _Oh boy. Oh boy. Ooooooooh boy._

I look away and instead flicker my gaze down to the holographic panel below my fingertips and that’s when I notice the hovering symbol on the bottom right hand side, the video call symbol. Internally I wonder why it’s open before I suddenly remember _exactly_ what it was for, and my thoughts flicker into a vague sort of focus. _That’s right, they called the Blades today after I split off to make the damn enhancer bitch._

As I look back over at Keith’s gaze on the night sky a new stream of thoughts arise. _He hasn’t had much of an opportunity to speak to the Blades alone. Or at all, period. But he seems less tense recently, I wondered if they had been talking about all the questions he had going into their base and that’s why, but maybe I’m just reading it wrong._

 _Maybe I should just ask instead of speculating._ I find myself speaking without too much thought behind it, my hands resting on the panel as I tilt my head to the side to regard him evenly, “Hey, so I wanted to ask you… How’d the meeting with the Blade of Marmora go?”

Keith seems to blink out of his thoughts, he looks down at my fingertips on the holographic panel before he meets my gaze evenly, crossing his arms over his chest, “Like Shiro said earlier, we’re basically changing the plan to bring Zarkon to us.”

“Yeah, I know that.” I wave a hand and shift to instead lean with one hip on the panel so I can face him fully, speaking in a gentler register, “I meant… I guess I didn’t phrase this right…” I chew on my lip pensively, flickering my gaze to the side as I keep getting _fucking distracted_ by his fucking _pretty face_ to string together my words, “You had so many questions when we left their base forever ago. I guess I just wanted to know if Kolivan ever gave you some answers.”

“Oh.” Keith’s hands fall to his sides as his gaze trails off to his left, regarding the stars with his face partially hidden from me. After a moment he murmurs thoughtfully, “He told me some things, nothing much. He gave me communicator before we all split up, said that he’d answer what he could.” 

He doesn’t speak for a long moment but he looks like he’s about to, or wants to, so I don’t interrupt, I stay still and regard him with an attentive expression. Not that he’s looking; he’s staring off at another planet, away from me and out the glass. He slowly shifts his gaze forward again, I examine his profile as he continues in a husky voice, “He doesn’t know who my mom was, or where she might be. But just the fact I know that the knife was her’s, that she was a Blade… it connects a lot of the puzzle pieces I’ve always had.”

I tilt my head to the side, regarding him with a warm light as a question forms - well, several questions, but the easiest one to latch onto in this moment comes to the front like floating debris, “So you know it’s your mom that’s Galra?” 

Keith flickers his gaze to mine, they shine a dull iron in the overhead Balmeran crystal’s light; he seems reluctant to speak, he rests his hands on the holographic panel and his mouth hardens into a line. Compelled I reach out towards him to take one of his hands, clad in fingerless gloves, and run my thumb over his knuckles; much to my surprise he doesn’t stop me, he merely watches me with a hooded expression.

I speak softly with a low murmur, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” 

Keith doesn’t say anything in response for a long time, his eyes are far away and his expression is closed off. Slowly he shifts to hold his hand I’d grabbed out flat towards me, almost in offering, and eagerly I take it. He doesn’t seem to be holding my hand for the comfort, it seems more like he’s holding it out for me to grasp at my own insistence, a subject to touch. “I knew my dad.” He mutters softly after a moment. I watch his gaze as it lingers on my fingers lacing through his, he doesn’t move to squeeze back but somehow just his allowance of my touches makes me feel rather warm and welcome, so I hold his hand in both of mine rather than just one. Keith speaks again in a low rumble, forcibly even, “I never met my mom. He said she had to leave but I never understood why. Now, after meeting the Blade of Marmora, seeing what they’re like… it’s something. More than I’ve ever had.”

I raise an eyebrow at him and squeeze his hand slightly, “Well, that means you got your determination from somewhere.” Keith blinks, looking up at me without comprehension so I elaborate in a gentle tone, “Out of everyone on the team you’re the one who’s most focused on the mission to defeat Zarkon. And I’ve also met the Blades. You seem a lot alike that way.”

Keith stares at me with an expression I don’t quite understand for a long time, his eyebrows are furrowed and his gaze flickers with a dark, violet flame. After a moment he lets out a sigh, his gaze shifting back down to my hands on his, “I guess so.”

Keith doesn’t look back up nor say anything further, so I venture for another question down the same tier. “So… where did you live? Before you went to the Garrison?” I ask this tentatively, watching him as close as I dare. I don’t want to push him too far to the point he pushes back, but I’m also so _so_ thirsty for more information, now that he’s opened up the doors a little I want to see what lies beyond them, I just need to be careful about not breaking the hinges in my rush to get in. I didn’t realize how desperate I was for Keith lore until just now, watching his face, feeling his hands in mine, realizing how little I know and how much I could.

Keith’s gaze hardens to steel. “Hopping foster homes.” He doesn’t care to elaborate, but his hand under mine tenses and instead moves to hold my hand with a tight grip, not uncomfortably so but it’s firm, it’s almost like he’s the one who’s grasping my hand rather than the other way around. He doesn’t speak and I don’t press, sensing the drawn line is close, so instead I regard him with a warm gaze while he rubs his thumb along the base of my hand. I feel it hitch on the scar in my palm, for a moment he pauses and runs the pad over it again, with its presence confirmed he flips my hand palm up and touches his fingertips to the crescent shaped scar beneath it, it’s faint to visibly see but it’s raised and obvious under physical scrutiny. “How’d you get this?” Keith asks curiously, his indigo gaze flickering back up to meet mine. 

I flush a bit with an embarrassed smile, “It’s stupid, you wouldn’t care to hear it.” 

“I _do_ wanna hear it.” Keith huffs indignantly, narrowing his eyes at me almost accusingly as his thumb rests on top of the dipped skin, almost like he’s holding a book open by a page. 

I shake my head a bit, a sheepish, self conscious grin spreading across my face as I shift to lean my back against the holographic panel instead so he can hold my right hand more easily, “It’s nothing cool or extravagant. I uh… I played field hockey back in Virginia. I was really close with my teammates, and one day we were spending the night together at a cheap hotel outside Virginia Beach, the day before State Championships, and we made a blood pact that no matter what happened at the game the next day we would always be friends.” I tap my ring finger to my palm just next to Keith’s thumb before shaking my head slightly with a soft sigh, “We got all kinda scattered to the winds after that. Then I came out as trans and it was a… whole thing. ‘Cause it was technically a girl’s only sports team, they’re traditional like that.” I look down at the scar beneath Keith’s thumb for a long moment, chewing on my lip in thought as I find words start pouring from my mouth, I murmur in a voice above a whisper, “It wasn’t a bad cut, but it scarred badly because I picked up the habit of digging my nails into it when I’m getting too caught up in my head, which ah… as you know… happens a lot. The pain kind of returns me to the present.” 

Keith hums softly in response as he flickers his gaze from me to my palm, after a brief pause he releases my hand and shifts to lean against the holographic panel next to me, his arms crossed. 

_That was kind of a lot of oversharing. Jesus. What is up with my filter recently?_

I would’ve thought the moment had passed, I was already thinking of something to say, a further question to ask him when Keith suddenly speaks up in a soft tone, “I didn’t know you were from the east coast.” I glance up to meet his eyes and find him watching me with a shrouded gaze, like he’s sitting beneath an umbrella.

I blink in surprise before I nod with a slight shrug, “Oh… right. Yeah. Out in the middle of nowhere, up in the mountains. My parents moved to Texas to teach at the Garrison a month or two after Shiro went missing.” 

Keith frowns a bit with his eyebrows furrowed, “Oh.” 

“Yeah.” I flicker my gaze to the side, huffing a bit with a wry smile, “I know it’s your home state so no offense intended, but I kinda hate Texas, have ever since I got there. I mean, there’s no _trees_ anywhere and it’s so _hot_ all the time, that’s just gross. And there’s _so much sand_ . Sand _sucks_ when you’re not at the beach, and even then it’s on thin fucking ice. And there are _scorpions_ and shit, like, what the fuck kind of sixth circle of hell is that? I’d much prefer an aggressive squirrel, or a badger or something.”

Keith grins crookedly and it makes my chest spasm with joy, internally I swear a vow to make a thousand more dumb jokes just to see it a second more. After a moment he tilts his head to the side and regards me with a warm, violet gaze, his voice is husky and contemplative, “But there’s no humidity, dry heat is like a blanket. And not all of Texas is like that; just the area around the Garrison… But even then, the land is so flat you can almost see the curvature of the planet when you’re laying on your back. You can see the whole sky that way.” His eyes flicker between mine with a pensive light, his fingers drum on the holographic panel behind him before he looks away, his gaze on his boots as he speaks in a lower tone, “And it’s quiet. You can hear a car start from miles away. And you can see all the stars because they’re are so bright out there, you can even see the Milky Way if you’re way out in the desert. And if you know where to look, you can spot the forgotten constellations.” 

I stare at Keith’s profile with his eyes on the floor for a long time. I’m never speechless, but… well, I should really stop saying that because I’m finding more and more that I can and do become speechless quite often now, especially with Keith. Especially when Keith speaks words of pure poetry to me, talking about a place I’ve always thought to be some sort of living environmental hell, a testament to man’s arrogance, and my first and immediate impulse is to jot his words down and write a song with them because it’s so powerful, it tastes like cool water on a hot day. 

“Holy shit.” I mutter under my breath almost in disbelief. Keith blinks at me with a confused expression and I meet it fully, I can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips touching the holographic panel. Looking into his eyes sparks the churning feeling in my chest like crashing waves on the sand and without much thought I touch Keith’s wrist beside my hand braced on the holographic panel, he raises an eyebrow at me as I close the distance and kiss him. He’s tense at first, internally I wonder if I shouldn’t have broken the unspoken personal barrier but after a moment he melts into it, leaning closer to me until I can feel his bangs brush my temple. 

After a moment I pull away, a fierce blush rising in my cheeks as I verbally stumble, “Sorry, I uh… wow. That was just uh… really beautiful.” 

Keith raises an eyebrow incredulously and smirks, sending an arrow straight through my gut and out the glass of the bridge as he replies with a tone of incredulousity, “I was just talking about the desert.” 

“It was more than that.” I state firmly like I’m captain of the debate team. I want to spill to him _just how much_ what he said just meant to me but I have no words, all I feel is warmth and light and something like enlightenment, understanding. I feel like I just saw an inside into Keith’s head, I saw a world from his perspective and how he somehow sees such _beauty_ in a place I always saw as a hellscape, showing me parts that I didn’t consider within Texas, within him. Worst of all is I have _no idea_ how to articulate just how much my blood is buzzing at the sensation and feeling of this level of startling intimacy, it’s a steady hum beneath my fingertips like when two notes are in perfect sync with one another and they ring and hang in the air in mutuality. 

“I love hearing things from your point of view.” I murmur softly after a moment, but it lacks the true meaning behind how I feel, it simply doesn’t encapsulate it in the slightest, it’s a drop in the ocean of all of my _fucking emotions_ . I suppose it’s stupid, he was ‘just talking about the desert’, but the way he spoke… It didn’t feel like ‘just’ anything. It felt real, it felt authentic, and it was fucking _beautiful. Just like he is._

“All you ‘just’ did is make me realize how gay I am for you, Keith.” I joke under my breath with a smirk, cupping Keith’s cheek in my hand and brushing a part of his bangs from his face. 

Keith flushes in response, his gaze flickers between my eyes before they drift downward, one of his hands touch my elbow and then gravitate up to my forearm of the hand that holds his face as he mumbles, “Just from me… talking…?” 

“Hell yeah.” I grin at him lopsidedly as he meets my gaze with smitten shock, “I told you once that when you have something to say you make every word count. I love that about you, it shows me a snapshot into your head… helps me know you on a deeper level.” A bit of self consciousness encroaches upon me and suddenly it’s rather hard to meet his gaze, my face feels unnaturally warm as I mutter under my breath, “... Makes me like you on a deeper level, too.” 

Keith’s face is scarlet, he looks flabberghasted and out of sorts, and frankly it’s a delicious sight. Before I can do much more than think about how beautiful his eyes are in the light of the stars Keith’s hands suddenly latch onto the front of my shirt and he tugs me forward, I barely let out a breath in surprise before his lips are on mine and I drown. I rest my hands on his wrists that hold my shirt before gliding them down his jacket’s forearms, the rough material is surprisingly grounding considering how Keith’s lips are making me feel like I’m orbiting the atmosphere. I trail my fingertips upwards to cup his face in my hands and hold him close, reveling in the soft movements, it’s like his lips were born to fit with mine and it’s a heady feeling, it’s a _dangerous_ feeling. _This is a dangerous way to be feeling._  

His hands splay on my chest just on my collarbone and dig into the material of my shirt intermittently, I feel some sort of tension beneath his skin that I can’t explain but it tastes like rocksalt on the tip of my tongue when he suddenly nips on my bottom lip. Heat rockets from my hands to my spine and warms my fingertips and makes my breath come faster against his lips, I can feel him starting to smirk. 

After a moment I pull away a fraction, Keith chases after for another kiss but I keep my hands pressed to his shoulders, when he looks at me with adorable confusion that makes my heart stutter out of time I cup his chin with a bright smile and laugh softly under my breath, “You have no goddamn right to be taking my breath away so often, you know that?”

Keith smirks a bit more, revealing a bared canine, surprisingly sharper than I expected, as he purrs, “I think I do. Especially after-” He abruptly stops midsentence, his smirk wiping clear from his face and his expression completely stone walling, his eyes fly wide and he looks at a space just beyond me like he got hit in the back of the head with a frying pan. 

I blink at him stupidly and try to draw his gaze back to me by tugging on his chin, “Whoa, hey, you good? What’s wrong?”

“... Nothing.” Keith’s gaze flickers away to the right side and that’s when I notice the blush that’s starting to build in his cheeks, spreading across the bridge of his nose like spilled ink on a thick page. _Likely story._

“Should I start guessing?” I ask rhetorically, looking at Keith seriously. Cold worms coil in my stomach and wrap around my core and tighten slowly but surely as I start digging into any possible reasons why Keith would be shutting down right now, _was it pressing him about his past? Was it kissing him suddenly and without warning? Was it-_

He meets my gaze and I watch as it flickers across my features then slightly downwards before it moves further away, almost in embarrassment. After a moment he huffs, “I just uh… I meant earlier. After earlier when you did uh… that thing.” 

I blink at him stupidly, shifting about so I can face him more fully where he has his back to the glass, “... Can you elaborate…?”

Keith almost immediately flushes, half crossing his arms as well as he starts to stumble over his words, half growling in growing frustration, “Er, I meant… when you… the thing with Lance…? The bet, dare, thing. The _thing_.”

Slowly pieces start to click into place and a devilish smirk begins to rise across my face. “Oh, _that_ ?” I tilt my head with a coy cock of my brow, Keith meets my gaze with red backlit under his bangs and spark of deep seated satisfaction begins to curl someplace buried in my chest, igniting a bonfire I didn’t realize that I had stored. Initially I think that I should probably be embarrassed, just as Keith is obviously embarrassed, but that evident embarrassment in Keith is inducing the opposite upon me, I’m proud, I’m _very_ proud that I managed to get Keith to blush so obviously hard that he’s lost coherency and that sparks something _hot_ in me. Something dangerous and cinnamon-spicy on my tongue like licorice.

I find the smirk broaden with my confidence as I take a step closer, crowding Keith slightly against the front holographic panel to the point that he’s looking at me with wide eyes full of surprise and expectation. “You enjoyed that did you?” I whisper with a cocky grin and Keith’s breath almost immediately hitches to my utmost delight, his gaze travels across my features in a searching manner, like he’s trying to decipher a translated tablet. I plant my hands on either side of him with his back pressed to the panel, I touch my nose to his with a gentle, innocent smile as I whisper as seductively as I can manage, _“Want a private show?”_

Keith physically balks, his entire face burns a brilliant crimson as his eyes blink and widen, I’m _shaken_ at how blown black they are, as dark as the forest at two in the morning during a new moon. His lips brush mine and they taste like the rim of a margarita glass, now that he’s bare inches away my sensitivity has been cranked so hard that I’m actually pretty close to physically shaking almost at the drop of a dime. _I can only imagine what’ll happen if I were to sing him the rest of the song. I don’t want to just imagine, though, I’m ready_ _to experience it. More than ready._

“Do you wanna hear the rest?” I tilt my head as I regard him with the genuine question hanging in the air between us like mistletoe. His eyes are locked on mine so hard and unwavering that it’s hard not to shrink beneath them they’re so… _searching_ , like he can see straight through my soul and know that I once ran laps around the school during gym as punishment for mouthing off at the coach. 

Slowly he licks his lips and nods a little, one of his hands that were gripping the panel behind him are suddenly on my arms, traveling upward to cup my face with his fingertips gracing my cheekbones and it makes my breath hiccup. The heat of the palm of his hand beneath the leather of his gloves is honestly all the courage I need to push past any sort of self consciousness, I’ve never considered myself a people pleaser but I do consider myself to be a _Keith_ pleaser, for sure, without a doubt. The voice I use hardly makes my words any sort of true song, I’m making sounds just above a whisper at a regular intonation, but in time and on queue, and _close enough_ to get the desired result.

 _“Hold me up against the wall,_ __  
_Give it ‘til I beg then give me some more,_ __  
_Make me bleed, I like it rough,_ __  
_I like it rough, rough, rough,_  
So push up to my body and sink your teeth into my flesh.”  

Keith’s gaze flickers from mine and instead shifts slightly downward, his thumb drags across my skin and idly touches my bottom lip, brushing across while they’re moving and it’s _rapidly_ intoxicating. I part my lips a little more than necessary while staring at him, my blood feels like it’s on fire and holy _fuck_ it’s hot in here all of a sudden, I almost forget the words I’m so lost in the glory of his wide eyed, beet red expression before me. I continue in a low, husky tone, practically a whisper with set notes as I keep my arms planted on either side of him with my hands on the inactive holographic panel. 

 _“Hold my arms above my head and push my face into the bed,_ __  
_‘Cause I’m a screamer, baby, make me your muse._ _  
_ _Put your hand upon my neck and feel my pulse beat-beat-beat-beat-”_ I pull on Keith’s hand on the panel behind him - not wanting to distract the hand cupping my jawline because that divine touch is driving me _insanely_ wild - and touch it to my throat, resting his first two fingers on my pulse point like in the music as I follow, _“It’s my trigger, get me ready to shoot.”_

 _“Fuck.”_ Keith whispers so softly it’s barely even a sound, only heard thanks to the consonants between his teeth, but he doesn’t close in, he stays still against me with his fingertips resting on my pulse where I put them and his thumb and forefinger on my chin, tilting my face down to his with only our mixing breath between us. I slide my hands to brace on his forearms, slipping the fingertips below the fabric of his jacket to grace his skin and continue with a hot breath cascading across his face. 

 _“Wanna wrestle with my baby? Here’s a sneak, little peek,_ __  
_You can dominate this game ‘cause I’m tough._ __  
_I don’t play around all that often but when I do, I’m a_ **_freak_ ** _,_  
So you’d better believe I like it rough~” I purr the lines for him with far too enunciated ends on the lyrics and I’m immediately rewarded with Keith’s breath hitching to the point that it all together stops, he holds his breath before letting it out in a short burst every few seconds like he’s running sprints. I travel my hands up his arms and to his chest, whispering the chorus for him again. 

This is, frankly, one of the most vulgar and sensual things I think I may have done with clothes on in a semipublic place, pressing close to Keith while singing filthy things to him under my breath. I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t wallowing in Keith’s reactions and expressions and looks, every breath, every hiccup, every flicker of his indigo gaze across my features is incentive for me to do more, to dig deeper and make this more entertaining and drive him crazier, it’s such a harsh and sudden desire that I don’t find it in me to care about how embarrassed I would be if someone walked onto the bridge right now, or how ashamed I should be of myself of being so… I dunno, _filthy,_ here. When I get to the bridge of the song I find some random blast of bright boldness from someplace far-flung and I follow my gut instinct to drive him crazy, I touch both of his wrists and guide them down to my chest. Keith stares at me with wide eyes as I close the distance and lean in close, pressed almost entirely against him as I guide his hands to feel up my chest as I breathe the song hot into his ear at a husky whisper. 

 _“Hold me down, and make me scream,_ _  
_ _Bang me on the floor - fuck me on the floor-”_

I bite on Keith’s earlobe after purring _fuck me on the floor_ and my entire body _screams_ in heat when his hands flutter and his breath stutters, immediately they trail past where my hands guide them to my hips and press me flush against him, his breath is like steam clinging to my neck and heat shoots up my spine when I feel just how _hard_ he is, he’s so hot it makes me shiver like I have a fever. Only then do I grab at the remnants of my fading courage and concentration to finish the bridge before I give into… something. I’m unsure what yet. I keep my voice low and sensual, just barely a whisper. 

 _“Turn me on, and take me high,_ _  
_ _Make me beg for more.”_  

I pause to pull away enough to face him again, cupping his jaw with a hand and looking him dead in the eyes to see the effect I’ve had and I’m immediately _floored_ by how _attractive_ he looks. His gaze immediately locks onto mine and he presses as close to me as he dares, his lips brush against mine but he doesn’t close in, much to my surprise, he continues to hang back a bit. Keith’s gaze flickers between my eyes searchingly and I meet his, silently I trail my gaze down to his parted, _stunning_ lips before rising back up to remeet his gaze, internally I wonder if I may have straight up broken him because of how scarlet his skin is. I cock an eyebrow with a coy smirk, breathless as hell I can barely control how insanely turned on I sound as I end up giggling, “You’re _so_ red in the face right now-”

I’m immediately cut off as Keith’s lips crash against mine and my body heat spikes, I kiss him back almost immediately and wind my hands into his hair, I can feel his hands grabbing up my chest and my sides hungrily, searching and pushing and _God_ am I _gone._ His arms make their way around my back and pull me close against him, I let out a soft, shaky, barely audible moan against his lips just as they glide away from me, before I can express my dismay they reattach themselves to the side of my neck just beneath my ear, sucking hard enough for my breath to hitch. No preamble, no maneuvering around the bush, he heads straight for my pulse and my knees weaken as my palms strike the holographic panel to keep my stable.

I don’t think about much else besides the brand new current objective highlighting in my mind. I reach down and grab Keith’s hand, pulling away from his dizzying tongue and instead tug him backwards with me as I grin wickedly and breathlessly, “Come on.”

Keith flickers his gaze back to the panel with a look of confusion as he stumbles after me before he then fixes me with a look that reads _what why, where are we again?_ While smirking a bit I lean in to whisper in his ear the answer to the unspoken question, “Don’t you wanna come to my room instead?” I enunciate on this with a nibble on his earlobe and with my hands ghosting his waist.

Keith audibly gulps and it is possibly one of the greatest, most satisfying sounds he’s made. “... Okay.” He murmurs breathlessly. His hand travels down my forearm and grasps my wrist, I feel his fingertips drag down to my hand and then press against the scar in my palm. 

I disengage from him a bit, gesturing with my chin to the doorway and once we’re walking out I find Keith’s hand continuing to cling onto mine, trailing and searching. I find myself smirking, raising an eyebrow in his direction, “You know, I never thought you’d be so publicly handsy.” 

“I don’t like people touching me.” Keith states simply in response, when I glance over at him with a raised eyebrow he pulls his hands away and instead worms them into his jacket pockets, his eyes follow his boots on the smooth white floors. Immediately I want to apologize for pointing it out, _I’d only meant it teasingly, please don’t pull away_ , but I don’t get the chance as he rumbles in a low tone, “Never wanted to touch someone else, either. But I like it when you touch me. And I like touching you.” He suddenly turns rather red as the words fall from his tongue, he hesitates after a moment before glancing over at me with a cautious light, “Is that weird?”

“Not at all.” I murmur softly in response, sudden warmth spreading from within that reaches all the way to my fingertips. Compelled for more I reach over and sift my fingers through the fringes of his hair almost on reflex, I can’t help but smile as I answer in a low voice, “That makes me really happy, actually. Kinda special.” 

Keith visibly flushes and although he doesn’t lean his head into my touch I can see he enjoys it based on how red his ears are, and how he doesn’t lean away. I chew on my lip after a moment as I let my hand fall, flickering my gaze to the floor as a sudden thought rolls into my mind like a slowly cresting wave, it bounces off my tongue before it can go through any filtration system in my head, “This may sound dumb but it feels nice that this is new ground for both of us. Makes me feel less scared to be vulnerable knowing that you’re willing to meet me halfway.” 

_Less scared? Is that true? Kind of. Yes. Yes, actually. But I don’t like the implication that I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable here._

Keith doesn’t answer, but his hands pull out of his pockets and he straightens a bit as we walk. After a moment he murmurs with a pensive tone, “I never thought of it that way.” 

The Castle’s startlingly quiet without the hum of the thrusters I’d grown accustomed to, even now knowing that most of the team, if not all, are on the Castle it still makes it seem that much louder of a quiet, like the deep chill of the Castle when it was just Allura and I. This sparks the return of that defamiliarized cold, the sudden silence cranks the white noise in my head to the maximum as my thoughts begin to swarm like bees around a broken hive. _Vulnerability as a two way street is what’s healthy for relationships, every damn self help book can tell you that. Keith is willing to open up to me about his parents, he touched upon what sounded like a hard life and that had to be_ **_hard_ ** _for him to say, he’s like a safe, he won’t open to anyone unless he lets you in. If we meet each other halfway like I think we are, like how I just said, like how I feel… that means I have to tell him more about me, he’ll see more of me, he’ll know who I truly am._

_What if he doesn’t like the Will he gets to know more about? What if I tell him something that’s too much and he isn’t ready for it, or he decides that he didn’t sign up for All of That and he’s better off without it? What if he’s so obsessed with touching the scars on my skin because they’re the cracks in the facade that he must be able to sense?_

_But I’m not a fraud, I’m not lying about who I am; this_ **_is_ ** _me. I’m not hiding how I feel or how I think from him now. But I’m like a toy with a packaging in another language that you have to learn to understand and what if he doesn’t like the additional instructions I come with? What if he finds out he got the toy broken, a secondhand sale when he was promised something new? Maybe_ **_that’s_ ** _why he always hitches on the scars, they’re wrinkles in the fabric, dents in the surface, rips in the foil._

_Oh my God, that really didn’t take long at all, did it? I really do just start overthinking at the drop of a dime. I need to shut up. Shut up. Stop talking. Stop thinking, just stop it, stop trying to ruin this for me. Shut up. Shut up._

Ice cold desperation seizes my veins and as soon as my door is close I grab Keith’s wrist and tug him inside rather hard, he makes a noise of surprise with the sudden pull. I close the door behind me and with the lights still on immediately I clasp his face between my hands and kiss him like my life depends on it because it feels like it does, I’m desperate for his silencing effect and the nullifying quiet his hands instill in me, I’m so _fucking desperate_ for _him_ all of a sudden it’s leaving me shaking like I haven’t eaten in days. Keith makes a soft noise in response and his hands immediately clasp my wrists, it takes him a moment to match my pace but when he does it’s blistering, it’s _hot_ and my blood becomes flame that spits sparks when I bite on his bottom lip and he lets out a sharp, surprised breath. I push my hands into his hair and press closer to him, his hands grab onto the sides of my shirt and I can feel his fingertips digging into the skin, his touch is lava and my skin is earth and the longer his hands remain the more they set into my structure to become more and more a part of me. _A dangerous thought. That’s a dangerous way to be thinking. Why am I thinking? Stop thinking, stop, stop, please, shut_ **_up_ ** _._

After a moment of scorching kisses Keith takes a slight step back to breathe, and although I want to close the distance and suck the air straight from his lungs I’m afraid to because it’s coming so suddenly rapidly. Internally I panic, _I don’t wanna drive him away,_ _you’re going too fast, you’re going to drive him away, Will, slow down, slow down._ Instead I slide my hands down his chest and hook my fingers on the belt around his waist and hold him close while pressing kisses to his jawline, but not biting, not biting, stop biting, _you’re going too fast, you’re going to drive him away, slow down, slow down._  

“W-Whoa, easy.” Keith stammers after a moment as I pull on his belt and my blood turns to slush, it’s his voice that plasters my self control back where it’s supposed to be to the point that I can look at him again and actually see; his gaze, although deliciously glossy, is confused, there’s a soft light of concern within like a buoy on a midnight sea.

As I stand there regarding him for that moment, my head returns from the forcibly induced clouds and I find I have no words to answer him, I just hold onto him with locked fingers and wide eyes. After a few more seconds Keith’s breath has returned, he speaks more normally if still a little breathless as he brushes stray hair from my eyes, his expression is resolute and his gaze is searching, “You look scared.” 

I blink at him for a long moment and my pulse stutters out of time, ice returning to grip its edges like laced poison. I want to brush it off and say _it’s just my face_ or something like that but after the vulnerability Keith showed me, how much of a _struggle_ it was for him to open up to me, if I were to push him out that would seem like I’m spitting in the face of that difficulty. _Fuck. I was right. Vulnerability coming from both ways, I have to give back, too. Fuck. Okay. I can do that. I have to. Just be careful. Just be careful with what you say. Be honest but don’t be blunt. Don’t drive him away._

“I kinda am.” I mutter, swallowing dryly on my tongue. Keith’s hands cup my face and his gaze is so hardwired to mine that I can’t look away, the world is nothing but shades of the violet. “I just… I have a thought, then I have another, and another, and it all crowds into my head until I’m talking myself into circles and questioning everything, not knowing what’s left from what’s right.” I bite my lip to try and stall the flow of thoughts but they quickly get carried away onto my tongue, I’m whispering softly against his lips with a running breath as my gaze locks on someplace faraway, I would forget that he’s even here if his hands cupping my face and his forearms beneath my hands weren’t the only things anchoring me to the now as I verbally stumble, “I get so certain about you, I _feel_ certain in how I feel and how I think you feel then I suddenly wonder _but what if he’s just indulging me_ or _what if he regrets this or that_ or _what if I say something stupid and he leaves because I’m just too much to handle_ or-” 

“Shh.” Keith touches his fingertips over my lips with a commanding shush and it silences me effectively. _God_ it’s like a drug, Keith shutting me up is the most addicting feeling I’ve ever experienced and I’ve dabbled with the big addiction players before. “Why’re you thinking this now?” He asks after a moment with a set brow and a searching expression that digs into my core and leaves me feeling more and more naked and exposed.

I gulp, closing my eyes and reveling in the taste of him on my lip and after a moment I speak in a softer, slower register that’s far more controlled, “Sorry. I’m… I’m sorry I went too fast just now. It’s… Keith, you… you bring me quiet. You’re the only person I’ve ever been with that makes those thoughts go away and… You kind of make me crave that silence. Crave _you_ …” I trail off, unsure of what else to say as my gaze slowly rises back up to his, tentative and glacial. 

Keith’s eyes flicker across my features with a kind of softness that makes my stomach quiver, it shakes bits of ice free from around my throat. Before I can start to backtrack away from it while kicking myself bloody at how fucking _clingy_ I sound, his hands suddenly brace on my shoulders and he starts to push gently, guiding me backwards. I follow willingly, letting my hands trail his belt until my knees hit my bed but he keeps pushing me back, before long I’m sitting. Suddenly his legs straddle mine and he climbs into my lap like it’s his throne, immediately my hands with minds of their own grab his hips, his waist, my breath hitches and lightning strikes through my veins having him so close, he’s _so close_ I can almost taste him. I look up at his demanding stare and once I’m where he wants me to be he leans in so close I can taste the cinnamon on my tongue as he whispers, “You need to stop overthinking things.” He taps my temple, and with the statement hanging in the air he presses his lips to my jaw, his hands rest on my shoulders and immediately my breath stutters out of time as I dig my fingertips into the fabric of his shirt. Shakily I nod as his breath steams my pulse and a blastwave pulses through my veins as he pushes his fingers through my hair, holding my head and my heart in the palm of his hands. 

Keith leans in close and returns his lips to hover over mine, with his legs on either side of me I’m drowning in the air that tastes like fall. I wait with baited, desperate breath, head tilted up for a kiss I’m seconds away from begging for but I don’t lean closer, I’m scared to push again. After a moment he whispers so softly that I wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t the only thing I’m focusing on, if he weren’t the only thing I cared about, “Then I’ll make it impossible for you to think about anything but me.” 

My breath stutters so violently I almost moan from his words alone before he closes the distance and our lips crash, it’s nothing but hunger and desperation and heat and my mouth immediately parts with a starving gasp of air that Keith bites off with his teeth nipping my lip. My hands rake up his back and plunge beneath his jacket, digging into the divets beneath his shoulder blades to desperately draw him closer as his lips fall open against mine, his breath is rugged and hard and rapidly growing faster and my entire body trembles at the mere sensation of it gracing my features. He cradles my head in his hand as his chest presses flush against mine and immediately my hands grab his hips, traveling to his waist and holding onto the space above his belt as he sucks on my lip, I can’t help the moan that escapes. 

He shivers and he pulls his hands away to pull his jacket off his shoulders, immediately I help by grabbing the back of it, once it’s off I don’t even bother throwing it to the floor, I just let it slide past my knees as I latch my hands to the back of his neck and draw his face closer, the scorching kisses intensify and deepen as his hands fumble on the buckle of his belt around his waist. Once he’s got it off he lets it drop, his knife strikes my knee as it falls to my feet but I could _not care_ any less, not with Keith’s breath coming up short against my lips when I nip and press my tongue to his teeth, with his hands raking through my hair and holding me close to him. Shakily I grab the hem of his shirt and move to tug it off as fast as I’m physically able to, I’m starving to touch him, I’m shaking at how badly I want to caress his skin and touch it and grab it and feel it beneath my hands and knowing that I can, that it’s not the first time and it’s not the last, yet despite this knowledge I can’t find it in me to slow our kisses to a stable point and it doesn’t seem like Keith is either; his mouth is feral like this is the last kiss we will ever share and it’s _mind blowing_ , all I can think about is the taste of cinnamon, his tongue is coarse like rock salt for icy roads. He holds his arms over his head as I pull the offending article off, I’m barely able to toss it aside before his hands grab the hem of my shirt and yank it up, the material stretches it’s such a hard tug but I couldn’t care less, I don’t care, _I don’t care_ , all I care about is the fire in my veins and the burning smoke his hands leave behind, I’m barely aware of the thud of my stone tapping against my chest from the sudden, jerky movements. 

I wedge my hands between us with brief difficulty and fumble with the clasp of his pants, I want to touch him so badly and pleasure him but he shifts in my lap to press closer and the game changes when his hips press against mine, blocking my hands. I’m only barely able to get to the zipper before the soaking pleasure seeps into my bones and immediately my hands have to grab his hips and hold him pressed against me as his breath hitches against my lips, sucking the heat he left behind down his throat. 

Drunk off the sound and hungry for more I move my hands to his lower back and guide his hips downward to meet mine and immediately my body heat spikes with the friction, Keith lets out a shaky gasp that he barely manages to pull under wraps at the last second. He doesn’t need prompting, as soon as I roll my hips up against his in a goading manner he grinds back down to meet me, lazy flashes of heat shoot from the growing tightness in my pants up my chest and into my face, Keith shivers and bites a little roughly on my bottom lip, using it to silence himself. I wrap my arms tighter around his middle, guiding his hips against mine and after having my breath sucked out of me I pull my lips away from his to instead latch them onto the space where his neck meets his shoulder, leaving hungry open-mouthed kisses along the fair skin, skin that still show evidence of the night before with yellowing splotches beneath the purple marks like a bed of flowers in snow. Keith sucks in breath as his hands travel from where they were splayed on my shoulders and instead weave into my hair, holding me close against him as he grinds on me, it’s hot and suffocating and his skin is salty and _delicious_ , remembering what he likes I immediately bite down on his skin but at the last second I think to be mindful of the sensitive bite mark next to it; I lather my tongue across the old one and the new. Keith sucks in breath and clasps a hand over his mouth as a garbled moan barely breaks free, I feel the heat trapped between us from his hardening length in his pants and it makes my cock _throb_ , I’m so fucking _hungry_ for the sound of his voice that it becomes my only mission, to _hear_ him, to make him lose his verbal control and _let loose_ , just for me, _because_ of me. 

I dig my nails into the small of his back before gliding my hands lower to the top of his jeans, pushing his hips rougher against mine and rolling him with a hard tug, producing rough and hot pressure and friction that leaves my breath stuttering as I suck a fresh bruise just above his collarbone. Keith’s hands lace into my hair as he follows my movements without resistance, he’s surprisingly pliant beneath my touch, receptive and _hot,_ it makes my blood spike. After a moment I slide my hands further down, testing my boundaries until they’re resting on his ass and with another roll of my hips against his I bite down again on his shoulder, sucking a galaxy into his skin and I’m rewarded with a breathless moan that rocks my entire body like a plane in turbulence. 

Suddenly he tugs _hard_ on my hair and I let my lips leave his skin at his insistence, when his gaze locks on mine pure hunger wells deep in my stomach, heat pools as his lips devour mine and he grinds on me with fresh insistence, another hot moan slips past my lips as I guide him against me, the universe doesn’t exist except for him and his touch and his breath against mine, nothing else matters, _nothing else exists_. 

After a particularly rough drag Keith lets out a desperate, low whine and my blood is set aflame, I barely get a chance to pull more out of him when his hands readjust their grasp in my hair, holding me tight as he sits back a bit so I can’t pursue and grab for kisses. I let out a breathy moan, opening my eyes to stare up at him and I’m _shaken_ at what I see, his eyes are black beneath the shadow of his bangs, the skin of his left shoulder is filled with evidence of my mouth and his lips are kiss red and _fucking spectacular_ to look at, simply put I could drown in his eyes and I’d thank him for the opportunity. 

“Will,” Keith growls, nearly making me lose any sense of consciousness when his hips roll against mine again, I hang on by my palms against his back pockets as his breath cascades against my lips, “I-I want you-” His breath hooks on the end and my heart rate spikes, my lungs ache as my hands slide down to grip his thighs like a lifeline. 

“Then have me.” I gasp in desperation, I want to chase after his mouth and smother it in mine but he holds my hair firm in the palm of his hand, it makes me whine in a mixed sensation of pleasure and hunger. 

“I- I mean here.” He releases my hair once I’m still before his hands grab my wrists and pull them to wrap around him, replacing them on his ass as his delicious breath ghosts my lips, “I want you, _ah_ …” Keith pauses, a fierce red blooming across cheeks as he whispers in a sheepish, embarrassed tone, “... _in_ me.”

Despite the hungry flash of absolute want that grips my lower stomach, apprehension and worry flicker across my thoughts. “Keith,” I whisper, he grinds his hips down on me and it immediately cuts off my train of thought, to regain it I grit my teeth and grab his belt loops to hold him still. He growls in frustration and furrows his eyebrows at me as his hands move and cup my face, I let out a shaking breath before I’m able to pick up the tracks my mind left behind, “You _saw_ what happened when we fucked without lube. I’m used to it, I’m prepared for it, and I’ve got my stone. I don’t want you to get hurt-”

Keith frowns, his hand leaves my face to reach behind him but I don’t let him, I grab his hips and roll him down on me again and this time I take him by surprise, he outright moans in such a hot manner that my blood _boils_ and heat in my face skyrockets. I’m _starving_ for him, I hadn’t considered the thought of topping him before but seeing his face like this now it’s at the forefront of my thoughts. I want to grab his thighs and roll him down slow, I can only imagine the faces he’s make if I fucked him deep and steady until he’s a mewling mess just for me, _then if I pushed his face into the bed and pounded him into the mattress until the only thing he can see are stars…_

_No, not without lube. You’ll hurt him, and he doesn’t have the stone like you do. What the fuck, Will, don’t be so fucking selfish, what’s wrong with you?_

I open my mouth to speak again as cold touches my teeth but before I can even think about what I’d say Keith shuts me up with a blistering kiss and an immediate, shaking moan slips from my mouth, my hands lax where they hold his hips in a white knuckled grip. He pulls away a fraction, leaving me seeing black spots as he reaches around again and pulls something white and flat from his back pocket, he presses it against my chest, just below where the White Lion’s stone hangs over my sternum. I blink stupidly and look down at it, slowly taking it from him before looking up at him with growing confusion mixed with the heady clouds draping my shoulders. 

“I found some.” He whispers breathlessly. I stare at him without comprehension, so he touches my chin with a demanding tug and I immediately face him fully, I’m putty in his hands and I couldn’t care less about putting up appearances. “It should work.” He murmurs.

Slowly my brain starts catching up to his words as I feel the flat white container, barely the size of a contacts holder, a fresh weight in my palm. I look down at it with furrowed eyebrows before looking up at Keith with a breathless, half incredulous laugh, “... Lube? Where the hell did you find this?” 

Keith’s cheeks melt into scarlet as his gaze flickers slightly to the side, “... Infirmary.” I raise an eyebrow a bit which pulls Keith’s eyes back to mine, he touches my chin again and rumbles, “I promise it works for what you uh… what we need.”

I watch Keith for a long moment before a sudden, wry smirk stretches across my features, “Do I wanna know how you know that?”

“Not now.” Keith leans in closer to me. His lips brush mine and I want to press closer and kiss them for real, kiss them until he’s breathless and dizzy and begging but he keeps me still with his hands on my chest. His entire face is red now and it’s beginning to trickle to his chest as he tentatively touches his forehead to mine, his voice is surprisingly raw and vulnerable as he continues in a low murmur with his eyes half closed, staring at my lips, “I’m… I told you I’ve never wanted people to touch me before… I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know what I want. I want you _in me_.” 

I gulp. I didn’t think it was possible for me to grow any harder but somehow he manages to send a fresh wave of deadly heat straight into my pants and outward like dropped coffee. But then comes still that awful nagging. _The first and last time I topped it didn’t end well, not in the slightest. I’d helped Jax stretch and he was fine at the end of it but Keith is so reserved, how will I know if I hurt him? Would he tell me? And what he just said, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, does he mean bottoming? Has he never been on the bottom before? And he wants to try it with_ **_me_ ** _? Not a lot of guys end up like bottoming, which is very much okay, it’s a valid thing, but I don’t want Keith to discover that while he’s with me, I don’t want Keith to discover what he_ **_doesn’t_ ** _like when he’s with me, I want him to realize things he_ **_does_ ** _like. What if this is too fast, what if I hurt him and he doesn’t tell me and then he grows to resent me just like Jax-_

I snap out of my head as Keith cups my cheek. When I look up into his eyes I can see the careful light there, replacing the heat like it never existed as he murmurs, “You’re thinking again.” I flush, internally I feel a sense of cold spread below my sternum at how easy it is for him to see that in me now but I don’t get the chance to truly delve into the feeling as his thumb brushes my bottom lip, his voice is gentle and soft, “I trust you, Will. You’re not going to hurt me… But if you don’t want to, that’s okay, too.” 

Something warm bubbles in my throat and I’m barely conscious of the strangled sound that rises from the base of my chest as I lean into Keith’s touch, suddenly I feel like I’m soaking in cider after standing out in a blizzard all day. I rest my hand over his on my cheek and with a gentle pull I kiss the base of his palm before looking up at him meaningfully, “Only if you want to. You don’t have to if you don’t.” 

“I _do_.” Keith growls rather suddenly, his lips breach mine briefly enough for my thoughts to spin away, blown like dandelion fluff on the breeze but not long enough for any substantial heat to build or burn. After a moment he pulls away from me and slides off of my lap, I look at him with a wide eyed pout to convey my displeasure of the lack of kisses right as he drops to his knees in front of me and my heart drops to the dark pool of heat in my stomach with him. 

 _“Oh.”_ I whisper pathetically as Keith undoes the button of my jeans and my entire face burns a bright red as he pushes my thighs apart and looks at me with such a filthy expression that my entire body shuts down, my hand clamps over my mouth in simple, embarrassed shock. He smirks with a light of victory in his indigo gaze as his elbows brace on my thighs, his hands gliding up the material of my jeans and single handedly setting them on fire before they hook on the waistband and tug downward. I shift a bit to help him get them off and he doesn’t even wait until they’re past my knees until he’s wedging himself between my legs, his lips attack my lower stomach and I _melt_. I lean my arms back on my bed to hold myself up as my head lolls backward to moan pathetically when I feel his hands holding my waist to keep me still, it’s the only thing that’s keeping me on the ground when everything else is in heaven when his lips touch the outside of my boxers. 

 _“Keith.”_ I plea with a gasp, his fingers burn as they drag down my skin and my entire body lights up like a match when he tugs my boxers slightly down and his tongue touches my dick without a second’s hesitation. I reach out and grab his hair in a tight fist, holding his bangs out of his face with a rough drag of my fingers and I almost moan in sync with him when his breath sucks the heat from my lower stomach with a heady groan, wet heat envelops me. I risk a look down and I practically _die_ from how hot the sight is before me, Keith’s head between my legs, his eyes sealed tightly shut with his brow furrowed in concentration and his hands braced on either side of my thighs with my cock vanishing from sight between his parted lips. 

His tongue presses hot against the underside and tightens the heat and immediately I moan, clasping my free hand over my mouth as the other digs into Keith’s hair, after a moment I gasp out the words with as much coherency as I’m physically able to manage, “ _Fuck,_ Keith, baby, I’m not gonna last-” 

Keith leaves a heat soaking lick on the head of my cock that’s so wildly hot that I’m almost borderline feral as he meets my gaze with black violets glowing in his eyes, “Good.” 

I whine when he lips wrap back around my cock but I keep my mission in mind at the last second before I allow myself to fall into the welcome, warm, wet abyss. “ _Hn-! No_ , goddamnit- fuck, Keith, _not_ good.” I tug on his hair and pull him off of me and I’m _shaken_ when Keith suddenly moans, hot and rugged and husky as he meets my gaze with his kiss-red lips parted, covered in spittle and pre and it makes harsh heat ignite in my bloodstream. Closing the minimal distance between us I lean in and hold his chin in my hand, tilting his face up to mine as I growl against his lips, “The only way I wanna come is when I’m _buried_ in you.”

Keith sucks in breath against my lips and the cinnamon is so swiftly intoxicating that I dive in, kissing him with parted, hungry lips and sloppy sucks on his bottom lip to the point his fingertips dig into my thighs. With some twists and awkward shifting I push my pants and boxers off as Keith rises up, I look up at him as I kick off my clothes and immediately grapple with his pants’ waistband, sucking on the outside of his boxers as I shove the clothes down and Keith immediately lets out a shaky breath, his fingers curling into my hair. I grin with a wicked gleam up at him as I push my hands up his hips and rip the rest of his clothes off but he doesn’t let me linger with my mouth on him for long, he pushes on my arms and presses me onto my back. With parted lips I tilt my head up to kiss him but he doesn’t meet them, he ducks his head down instead and latches his lips onto my throat. Immediately I groan as he returns to sit back in my lap but he keeps space between our hips, much to my dismay as I was already thinking about how to drive him violently to the edge before… _Oh. I’m really about to do this. I’m gonna stretch him. I’m gonna finger him open and then I’m gonna fuck him._ My cock twitches at the mere thought and the air suddenly feels scorching between the minimal distance between us. _Oh my_ **_God_ ** _._

Keith nips underneath my jawline and I let out a soft gasp in response, digging my fingertips into his sides a little harder than I mean to and I’m met with him moaning softly against my throat with only a bare hitch to silence himself. I smirk a bit with self satisfaction but after a moment he growls as he sucks suddenly on my pulse and I’m _gone_ , I let out a shaky moan and move my hands to grab at Keith’s hair and hold him against my throat.

“That’s a downside of your stone.” Keith purrs against my skin, I can’t help but shiver as his forehead touches mine and I meet his hungry gaze, it’s black and wide blown with shadow and it makes me _so ridiculously hard,_ I don’t even realize he’s speaking to me as his lips dip to grace my jaw, tonguing the burning skin as he whispers, “My marks won’t stay on you long.” 

“Then you better make more.” I stammer softly in response with absolutely no thought behind the words, hooking an arm over his shoulder and raking my fingers through his hair as I growl, “And make them last.” 

 _“Fuck.”_ Keith moans under his breath and with the permission he immediately bites on the crook of my neck to my shoulder hard enough that I can feel the sting of his canines almost breaking the skin, his hips shift forward and rut against mine and I gasp _loudly_.

Although usually the pain of bites turn me off, something about Keith grabbing my sides, rolling his hips against me and lapping the reddened galaxies he leaves behind somehow makes me feel _insanely_ hot; I feel desirable, I feel wanted and being wanted by Keith is one of the most wonderful sensations I’ve experienced, I would bend over backwards, I’d bend in _all sorts of ways_ if it would make Keith hold me like a treasure and kiss me breathless because he _wants_ to, he wants to kiss _me_ and grab _me_ and bite _me_ -

Keith’s arms suddenly drop from where they grasped my hair and shoulders and instead flounder, pushing off to the side and grabbing at the bed sheets behind me before he sits up a bit with the white container at hand. I look up at him with wide eyes as it turns over in his fingertips, watching me watch him Keith murmurs in a _deliciously_ husky voice that makes me shiver, “I um… You’re gonna have to tell me how to do this.” 

I raise an eyebrow at him, trailing fingertips up to Keith’s hip idly to feel him shiver under my touch, “Have you never done this before?” His gaze flickers down with a bit of an abashed expression and with a soft look I sit up and touch his hands fingering the white device, I regard him gently with a serious expression, “If you’re having second thoughts that’s okay. I don’t want you to get uncomfortable or follow through with something you’ve changed your mind about.” 

Keith regards me for a long, silent moment before he shakes his head once, “No, I want this.” He shifts forward some more until his length brushes mine and I immediately start with a gasp, grabbing his hips as he bites his lip to suppress any additional sounds besides his words, _“I want you.”_

 _“Fuck.”_ I gasp out loud, and although I want to grab his thighs and flip him over to drive him crazy some more some random stroke of clarity shines through my consciousness to hold me back at the last second. Instead I reach out and take the small container of lube from Keith’s hands, much to his surprise, and splay my hands on his _fucking gorgeous_ thighs as I murmur, “Then let me do it.” 

Keith blinks at me stupidly, “Huh?”

I chew on my lip momentarily before I glide my hands up Keith’s bare sides, counting his ribs beneath my fingertips as I press my lips to the center of his chest, after a moment I flicker my gaze back up to his and rumble, “I wanna finger you.”

I’ve never seen someone’s face morph to scarlet so fast. _“Oh.”_ Keith stammers, his eyes are owlish and a deep spacial blue in the overhead lights. I watch him swallow, his breath coming out in a rough gasp before he briefly nods, his hands resting on my forearms. 

I tilt my head up towards him and Keith leans down to meet me halfway, his touches are soft and gentle in stark contrast to the desperate, starving kisses we’ve shared up until this one, but it’s no less mind blowing and _amazing._ I pull away after a moment just a bare inch to whisper against his lips, “This’ll be easier if you’re on your stomach. Is that okay?”

I feel Keith shiver beneath my hands braced on his waist in response, his eyes flicker to the sides with absolute, total embarrassment evident on his features, after a moment’s pause he gives me a small nod. I kiss the side of his neck gently in affirmation and to my relief it does as I wanted and relaxes him, but I don’t get to taste his skin long as he shifts off of me and fully on my bed, immediately I twist to press behind him once he’s on his hands and knees. He trembles when I touch his hips, lifting them higher and pressing my chest flat against his back to leave soft, open mouthed kisses on his shoulderblades and spine and I can feel his breath begin to stutter out of time but he’s incredibly tense under my touch, like a coiled spring. Worried, I brush his bangs from his eyes and he looks over his shoulder at me with a slightly confused light as I kiss his temple, with his indigo gaze boring into my soul I whisper with soft affirmations against the skin of his shoulder, “If you want to stop you have to tell me. Okay?” Keith mutely nods as he digs his fingers into the bedspread but that’s not good enough for me, I rest my hands overtop his and pull his attention back to me as I murmur, “You have to promise.”

 _“Okay.”_ Keith growls with a twinge of frustration, shooting me a glare over his shoulder as he pushes his hips back against mine and I immediately flush when my dick presses against the back of his thighs; Keith notices, as he does smirk a bit and it makes me blush all the harder, but after a moment he murmurs in a gentler tone, “I told you I trust you. I meant it.” I stare at him with wide eyes for a solid few seconds, the only thing I can hear is my heartbeat and the only thing I can see is the violets of Keith’s eyes before he huffs a bit afterward, “Just hurry it up so you can fuck me already.”

Air leaves my lips like I’m a broken air compressor. _“Jesus Christ, okay.”_ I stammer, leaving a hurried kiss on his shoulder as I sit back on my heels and produce the white container. _So this is lube, huh? Alright, we’ll see about that. Step one… how do I open the damn thing._ I flip it end over end several times, searching for a seam or a button until I finally see the barely visible crack, I pull and push on it but nothing happens, however as I turn it over I twist it and the side opens into a small space and a clear, viscous fluid comes out onto my fingertips. I bite my lip and settle my nerves as I rub my fingertips and thumb together to spread it and warm the cool liquid up, internally thinking a mile a minute. _Okay, so it looks like lube and it feels like lube, I hope that this is alright. Okay, okay, if this were me I’d start off slow with one finger curling and creating room before adding the second and from there starting the real stretch. I’ll just have to be slow, I don’t want to be too hard or too fast or I might hurt him. Just be slow, Will, just take it slow. Make him feel how he made me feel last night, hold him close, treasure him and touch him like his body’s a temple because frankly it is, and I’m here to fucking_ **_worship_ ** _._

Keith starts to shift, winding and unwinding his hands in the sheets and looking at me over his shoulder and I know I’m hesitating too long so with the plan of action in mind I lean back over him and hold his hip with my free hand as I slide the other between his legs, immediately I feel Keith shivering beneath my touches in an intoxicating fashion. I leave soft, open mouthed kisses in between his shoulderblades to distract him and calm my own nerves as I guide my hand to his hole and there I press my lubed fingertips outside, spreading it with gentle, teasing drags around him. Keith doesn’t so much as breathe, his arms are tense and his back is as straight as an arrow with his head hung between his shoulders, I can’t see his face with his hair in the way. I drag my fingertips around him, gently fingering his entrance only briefly before I push in with a single finger as I run my free hand up and down his thigh, to his hip, waist, and back down again. 

Keith lets out a low, harsh breath between grit teeth, under my breath I whisper against his skin as I suck gently on the dip between his shoulderblades, “Relax for me, baby, I got you.” 

To help him I reach my free hand in front of him and wrap it around his length and pumping him slowly, doing slow, gentle strokes before timing them with the in and outs of my finger. Keith shivers beneath my hands as I push my finger in deeper, slowly but surely; it’s immediately driving me wild, he’s so fucking _hot and tight_ and he feels so velvety and soft that just the sensation and excitement of pushing my fingers into him is making me rock hard. Keith lets out a shaky breath that’s a barely disguised moan as his fingers dig so hard into the sheets that his knuckles turn white, his head lifts up and I immediately stare in awe as his hair falls over his shoulders, inky crests as mere shadows against the beautiful expanse of his skin like moonlight shining on the sea. I leave gentle kisses up his spine and to his shoulder, sucking on his skin with bare teeth as I push my finger deeper. I curl it inside him in a beckoning motion as I push back out then back in, I can feel Keith’s breathing stammer to an almost panting level as I continue to stroke his cock with my other hand. 

“You okay?” I ask with another kiss on his shoulder and he immediately nods, his head lifts enough that I can see his face and I’m _shaken_ , his eyes are closed and his eyebrows are furrowed almost in concentration like he’s thinking really hard about something, it’s… hot. “No stinging or anything, right?” I follow up, leaving more open mouthed kisses along his shoulder before touching my lips to his temple as I continue thrusting my finger in and out. 

“No.” Keith states in a hard breath like he got punched, I stall my motions briefly to watch him in concern but he immediately growls, one of his hands suddenly snapping around and grabbing my wrist that’s slowly fingering him and keeping it here as he bares his teeth with a slight hiss, _“Gimme more.”_

It takes serious self control for me to bite down gently on his shoulder instead of plunging my finger deeper to finger him with earnest, but _somehow_ I manage. Keith shivers with the nip and pushes his hips back against my hand so as I leave an apologetic lick on the mark I press my second lubed finger in with the first as he commanded. Keith stops moving his hips to my relief but his breath starts coming in heavier as I move my fingers in, slowly shifting from the first knuckle to the second until they’re both buried in him. 

“Still okay?” I murmur softly against his skin as I leave tender, open mouthed kisses wherever I can reach, releasing Keith’s dick in favor of holding onto his hip and thigh to keep him from bearing my full weight on his back. He nods with a shaky breath, his head rolling to the side as his back slowly starts to arch, as I move my fingers in and out of him and I’m rapidly getting drunk off of the sensations, watching Keith’s expression open up from beneath the shadows of his bangs, his lips part slightly with a gasp when I push into him, the impossible tightness is driving me _insane_ it’s so _fucking hot._ I admit it, I’m getting _really really_ excited about the prospect of topping Keith but I don’t allow myself to wallow or get lost in those thoughts, I focus solely on Keith’s trembling muscles beneath my hands, his breathing, and working him open. 

Before long Keith is squirming again, and that’s how I know he’s accommodated and ready for more. I withdraw my fingers much to Keith’s verbal disappointment to dab some more of the fluid onto them and it rewards me a glare from Keith thrown over his shoulder, he growls in frustration, “Damnit, Will, I’m not fragile, you don’t have to be so-” 

I cock an eyebrow at him and with a slightly wicked smirk I reach out and grab his hair, tugging it back roughly and it has the desired effect, Keith’s voice immediately cuts off as he almost strangles himself attempting to stop the moan that threatens to spill out and it’s a fucking _attractive_ sight to see. I lean down with his hair tight in my grip as I push my fingers back inside of him, he lets out a breathless, bare whine that’s almost a moan in response that coils heat deep in my stomach. I graze my teeth on his shoulder as I stretch him with two and growl against his marked skin, “I know you’re not fragile… But this isn’t how I wanna break you just yet.” 

Keith lets out a desperate whimper as I push my fingers deeper into him and only then do I move up to three, continuing just as slowly as I was before and this time Keith doesn’t tense, but rather he relaxes. I massage his scalp with my free hand before dragging my lips across his skin, holding his waist to keep him steady as I finger him open slow and steady. Keith lets his head hang again as hard breaths start stuttering from his parted lips, his eyebrows are furrowed in concentration and his hands are digging so hard into the sheets that his knuckles are white, I’d be worried that he’s in pain if it weren’t for the shaking in his thighs and the curl of his toes. 

I press closer to him, brushing my lips along his spine while whispering sweet nothings and push my fingers in deeper and Keith outright gasps, that’s when I feel the change in him, the soft area beneath my fingertips is the key that I was looking for. I can’t help but smirk a little wolfishly as I gently teeth the nape of his neck and without mercy I reach my hand around his front and slowly glide my fingers around his cock, pumping him in time as I stroke the bundle of nerves deep inside him. The results are immediate, Keith releases the covers and claps a hand over his mouth as a sudden shudder rushes through his being almost tangibly beneath my touch, his eyes fly open as he suddenly looks over his shoulder at me and I feel my breath hitch at the desperate light in his eyes makes them black as charcoal. Curious I press a little closer and kiss his throat as I stroke Keith’s dick, slowly pushing against the sweet spot inside him and Keith’s hand that was covering his mouth immediately latches on my hair and pulls me closer to him, a soft, shaking moan escapes his lips and my eyes flutter shut in pure ecstasy from the sensation, there’s nothing better in the whole world than hearing Keith moan because of what I’m doing to him. 

 _“Fuck me already.”_ Keith growls under his breath so softly to the point I almost don’t hear him, I pause and look at him with wide eyes to which he responds by pushing his hips back against my fingers.

I kiss his shoulder, holding him steady with my free hand as I slowly drag my fingers out and murmur against his skin, “Are you still sure about this?” 

 _“Yes.”_ Keith sounds about two seconds either from whining or hissing at me and both are equally hilarious and delicious options as he glares at me over his shoulder with a dark and dangerous light in his eyes. 

I wrap my arms around his waist, splaying my hands flat between his thighs and pulling him against me, pressing my length hot just beneath the dimples of the small of his back and Keith immediately shivers, his head lolls back between his shoulders as he holds himself up on his elbows, digging his fingers into the sheets. It’s hot, it’s such a _hot_ feeling that I’m seconds away from losing my own head, I’m shaking like a leaf caught in a screen door during a hurricane. It takes some time to pull myself from the indigo clouds I find myself in to press a kiss to Keith’s neck and murmur against his skin, “Don’t be impatient with me. I’m not trying to tease you, I just wanna keep you safe. Wanna make sure this is really what you want.” 

This seems to quell Keith a bit more than I was expecting, as the tension in his shoulders beneath my chest lax visibly and his hands fisting the blankets ease to a more regular hold. He flickers his gaze over his shoulder at me and sits up suddenly, immediately I move to give him space but he doesn’t let me get far, his hand winds into my hair and pulls me close before he kisses me softly. It’s dizzying, the taste of cinnamon is masked with hints of musk and I find my head spiraling into violet nebula, a swirling abyss I’m happy to fall into. His lips disengage and I blink slowly to see him regarding me with a soft expression that makes my chest spasm, his gaze locked on me glints seriously as he murmurs, “I trust you not to hurt me, Will. I trust you.” I feel his other hand that isn’t curling into my hair grace my thigh then dig his fingertips into my hip, pulling me against him as he whispers with the same amount of seriousness, “I told you to think about nothing but me. So do it. Make me feel good.” His lips drag against mine just barely enough for my breath to hitch, his eyes flutter shut as scarlet builds in his face when he stammers, “And fuck me good.” 

An embarrassing amount of heat rockets straight to my cock as I find my hands digging into his hips. _“Oh my God.”_ I moan softly before immediately I dig my teeth into the flesh of his shoulder, causing Keith to gasp and start as his hands both come over my shoulders and trail through my hair. I stumble to find the lube and slick myself up at the speed of light, once done I abandon it and leave heavy, open mouthed kisses along Keith’s shoulders and neck as I line myself up. I hesitate only for a moment, kissing the space below Keith’s pulse before murmuring, “If you want me to stop you have to tell me, okay? Promise me.” 

“P-Promise.” Keith replies quickly, his breath studdering out of time as I rest my hands on his upper thighs; I can’t stop grabbing his hips, his waist, his thighs, they’re so fucking gorgeous and soft and beautiful I have to treasure them and honor them with insistent touches and drags to spark shivers up his arms. _That’s the best I can do. I just have to trust that he’ll hold to his word._ I bite my lip and rest my forehead on the nape of Keith’s neck as I press into him at a glacial speed. 

Keith lets out a shaky breath and I hold onto him tighter, fully flush against him as he holds himself up by his fingertips only. I wrap my arms around his middle and hug him close against me as I push in a little deeper, Keith’s breathing hitches to slow starts and stops that accelerate once I’m past the head. I furrow my eyebrows and block out the sweltering heat to think about how best to proceed, _it’s easier to accommodate with the whole thing in, just gotta get to the hilt, slowly now, slowly…_ I bite my lip and furrow my eyebrows in concentration to keep my arms from shaking as I hold onto him like a lifeline, to keep from pushing in faster than he’s ready for even though now that I’m in him and surrounded in his velvety heat everything suddenly gets really real, really fast. I don’t stop until I’m fully sheathed, and once there I splay my hands out on Keith’s chest and feel his heartbeat beneath my heated palms, he’s like a furnace pressed against my front and it’s so good, it’s so deliciously good and he feels so fucking _hot_ and his breathing is so shallow and hiccupy and delicious… 

“I-I’m good.” Keith rasps after a moment, I raise my head slightly to press kisses against the freshly blossoming hickies on his shoulders, I can’t get enough of the salty taste of him, sweat beading between the divets of his back muscles. He takes another shaking breath as he rolls his hips back and immediately I tighten my hold on him when the wicked heat flashes up my chest, it’s so close and I’m so eager to bury myself in it that I know I won’t be able to go the pace he needs if he does that again. “I’m good, Will.” Keith repeats, his hands reach around and gravitate to my hips then to my arms wrapped around him, that’s when I notice his breath is steadier and his heart feels like a drum against my hands. _He’s good._

So, slowly, I start to move. Keith sucks in breath sharply as I pull out and then push back in, burying myself deep in him to the point that I can feel nothing but his wet heat and oh my _God_ it’s so tight, he’s so warm and he feels so good that I have to nibble on his shoulder to ground myself into him and feel _him_ , the trembling of his legs, the insistent pulling and moving of his hands on my forearms grasping his chest and with the encouragement I start to push into him with earnest. 

Keith immediately lets out a shaky moan that he silences at the last second, his head falls back slightly as his fingers lace into mine and he moves his hips back to meet mine and it’s rapidly intoxicating, the slow fuck is deep and hot and I can feel everything in my head scramble, the only thoughts I have are of how to get Keith to continue to unravel under my touch, to break his vow of silence and make him melt, _I wanna make him moan and make him cry out and beg for more and devolve into a cock hungry mess - oh my God._

 _“Fuck-”_ Keith gasps as I start rocking his body for him, thrusting into him a little harder and a little deeper, I let my hands slide down and hold his hips, gravitating between his thighs with my thumbs on his hip bones to keep him controlled and it has Keith’s head rolling backwards until it’s rested on my shoulder. His breath stutters as his hands travel up my arms and then tug against my hair insistently, I open my eyes to stare at him and I’m so glad I do. Each thrust has his lips parting with an almost moan, his eyes are squeezed closed and his eyebrows are furrowed and it deepens when I bottom out, he’s barely hanging on to his control. _And I think I know how to tip him over the edge._

Abruptly I snap my hips back and pound him in earnest and Keith immediately lets out a breathy moan, his fingers in my hair tighten as his back arches and I find my fingertips digging into the sensitive skin of his thighs. I thrust into him rough and fast for a few seconds before I return to the slower, deeper thrusts, alternating back and forth until Keith’s breathing rockets up and down with it, his voice garbles intermittently and his hands drop to find purchase on the bed. I shiver as he suddenly clenches around me and a rocky moan escapes my lips and with it my inhibitions, I toss out any thoughts of keeping him still out the window, all I care about at the flip of a switch is _fucking Keith stupid._

So I do. I grab his hair suddenly and push his face into the mattress as I start pounding him into the bed and his response is immediate, he lets out a loud, abrupt moan that tightens the spreading pool of heat in my abdomen, he cuts it off at the very last minute almost as an afterthought. Keith gasps against the sheets as I push into him a little deeper, the scent of musk and sex crowds my senses with the creak of the mattress beneath him and the slap of skin on skin and my breath stutters out of time, it’s hot and it feels _so fucking good_ , feeling him shivering and writhing beneath me is nothing short of a religious experience. I release his hair in favor of holding his hips tight in my hands and move them against me in time with my thrusts, I let out a shaky moan as the heat engulfs me and I have no plans to try and escape the flames, I’m ready to be consumed by them, by _him._

“Y-yes…” Keith whimpers as his lips part against the bedspread, his back arches as I pound in especially deep and his hands tighten on the sheets and a shaky whisper that’s barely heard in the hot mixture of other sounds that fill the room releases with a short burst of air, _“Will.”_  

The sound of my name sends straight, boiling lava through my veins and into my throat as I let out a moan, I thrust into him harder and it rewards me with more, minor moans and gasping, desperate breaths in junction with grasping hands at the bedspread and suddenly I find myself missing his touch. Seeing him with his face buried in the sheets is intoxicating as _fuck_ , don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want his hands grabbing the sheets, I want him grabbing _me,_ I want to feel him devolving on every front. Some back part of me recognizes the selfishness of this, that this isn’t supposed to be about me and what I want but I can’t find it in me to care, not when Keith lets out a sharp gasp, a half moan as I push into him a little harder. 

I reach out again and grab Keith’s hair, rewarding me with a sudden, loud moan that seems to surprise Keith as much as it surprises me, his face blooms a bright red as his gaze flickers back to meet mine. I’m blown away at how hot he looks, his eyes are black like soot and his lips are parted between shaky breaths, red and slick. _Jesus Christ am I in heaven?_

I drag him up to his knees more fully by his hair and then hold onto his waist, keeping him upright and fucking into him hard and deep and Keith immediately becomes a babbling mess. His hands grab my arms, my shoulders, my snapping hips and it’s releasing hot flashes through my blood and into my face as I bury it into the nape of his neck, leaving wet, open mouthed kisses meant to drive him further insane, as insane as he’s making me.

“W-Will! Oh-!” Keith’s breath hitches and I see a burning red blush burn in his face and melt down his neck, I suck against an abandoned hickey and Keith bites down on his lip so hard that a small worry that he may bleed comes to the forefront of my hazy, heated thoughts. 

“Don’t hold back.” I whisper against the skin of his neck, I leave a hot lick over a fresh bite mark and Keith’s breath immediately stammers as I grab his thighs, slamming into him slow and deep, “I wanna hear how good I’m making you feel.” 

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and he hisses as I dig my fingertips into his skin, after a moment of hitching breath and barely repressed sounds he growls, “Y-you are. _Hah…_ W-what’s it matter how I sound-? _Hn_ .” He bites his lip again and represses a whine as I thrust in deep, his hands grab mine where they clasp his chest so harshly to the point it almost hurts but I don’t care, I don’t _fucking_ care. 

“It matters to me.” I murmur as I press a kiss to his jawline, Keith lets out a shaky breath as I fuck up into him slowly with sensual drags. I continue speaking with exactly zero thought behind the words, they pour straight from someplace warm and full of truth, “I don’t want you to hold back with me. You said you trust me, so trust me with your moans. You’re safe with me.” 

Keith grows a little quieter, I open my eyes to see his gaze locked ahead of him like he’s in a dreamscape, his expression is open in surprise. I trail my hands to his hair and sift through the soft locks, Keith’s eyes flutter shut with a content hum and when I feel him relax beneath my touches, this time I grab his hair and tug it again until his back is flush against my chest and that’s when something in Keith seems to crack. His mouth falls open with a downright angelic moan and his hands grab my hips as I bury myself completely inside him. I suck a nebula that matches his eyes into the skin between his neck and his shoulder and whisper into his ear, “Let go for me, baby. _Let go._ ”

When I start pounding into him again something about my grip tightening in his hair breaks the dam in his throat and he lets rip a stream of soft, pleading moans, his eyes stay shut and his expression opens like floodgates, _“W-Will! Oh yes, Will, Will-”_

I shiver and moan with him, wrapping my arms tightly around his hips and gripping his thighs as I suckle on a stretch of bitten flesh, “Keep calling my name just like that, oh God, _Keith_.” 

 _“Will.”_ Keith moans with a hitching gasp, his hips move back against mine as one of his hands grab my wrist, holding onto him so tightly, while the other starts to pump his cock, desperate whines and shaking moans slip past his lips in a pleading mantra, _“Will! Will, harder, I’m so close, Will, Will, hah- Will-!”_

 _“Fuck, Keith.”_ I gasp as heat spreads from him into me like radiating flames and with all of my energy and concentration I focus solely on fucking Keith into oblivion at his command, punching out my name from his lungs with each thrust and I’m drunk off the sound. In all honestly all I’m aware of is my name spilling from an unreserved Keith, his leftover cinnamon on the tip of my tongue, and the burning pool in the pit of my stomach fed by Keith’s body pressed against me. 

“I-I’m coming, Will- _Will!_ ” Keith gasps, and I see black spots when Keith clenches around me so tight I feel like I’m about to suffocate, I grab his hips and drive into him like my life depends on it when the flickers of white cum from between Keith’s clenched fist around his dick, painting the sheets as his lips part in a lasting moan, shaky and desperate and _satisfied_. 

His free hand digs into the flesh of my thigh as I slow my thrusts, grinding into him deeply to coax him through his orgasm and it makes Keith’s body rack in a full on shudder. His muscles lax and I hug his waist tightly to keep him steady as he goes limp, his head rests on my shoulder with closed eyes and parted lips that rasp out heady, desperate breaths; I slow to a stop, despite how much my entire body screams for me to continue fucking him and finishing myself, but I can’t find it in me to pull out just yet, it’s too close that doing so would almost hurt. _But I don’t want to hurt him just to satisfy my wants. Or just use him like a sleeve to bring myself release, not when he’s so spent that he’s about to fall like this. He doesn’t deserve that. Just gotta unwind a little and once I’m not so desperate then I can pull out._

I kiss the side of his throat, reaching down to aid Keith’s hand as it milks the last of his release and it immediately makes Keith moan ruggedly, his eyes flutter with the overstimulation. But eventually his erratic breath begins to slow as he comes down from his high, and his beautiful violet gaze returns to the present. He presses his hips back against me where I’m still buried in him and it immediately makes my cock twitch in want, I find my arms tightening around him to keep him still as a shaky breath escapes from between my grit teeth, barely hanging onto the self control. _Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move._

“Y-You’re still hard.” Keith rasps in a husky, fucked out voice that’s so insanely hot it’s frankly ridiculous, his hands trail along my forearms as he rolls his hips back against me again. 

This time I grab his hips with a desperate whine and hold him still, biting on my lip to prevent a moan from slipping out. _Okay, I’ve gotta let go, quick._ Once I’ve recovered a bit of my senses I pull out of him, it aches to do so but I suppress the feeling and kiss the nape of his neck, trailing my fingertips down his back and thighs. My priorities immediately shift with the clinging heat gone, I leave another kiss on his shoulder as I murmur softly, “You feeling okay? You’re not hurting anywhere, right? No stinging or-” 

“You didn’t finish.” Keith interrupts after a moment with a breathless noise, he flickers his gaze over his shoulder as he slowly turns around to face me, still on his knees. 

I blink at him stupidly as his hands move to cup my face, I feel a deep blush radiate from my cheeks as Keith’s gaze gravitates down to my flushed cock. I touch his chin and force his eyes back up to mine as I press a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips, “Shh, don’t worry about it. Now answer me, are you feeling sore? You’re gonna be a little bit later, but if you are immediately after then-”

Keith growls and clasps a hand over my mouth with a slight bare of his teeth and it sends a shiver straight down my spine, I stare at him with owlish, confused eyes. Suddenly he pushes on my chest, I let out a yelp as I fall on my back awkwardly and before I can get a sense of up from down Keith wedges himself between my thighs and locks his lips around my cock without preamble and my entire body _screams_ from the sensation. 

 _“O-Oh fuck, Keith!”_ I gasp, I lock my hands on his hair at the last second to attempt to pull him off but he doesn’t budge, he even smacks my hands away from him with one hand as the other starts stroking the base and I’m _gone_ . I want to say _no, baby it’s okay, you don’t have to_ or _don’t strain yourself after that you need to rest_ but all I can do is garble on my own tongue and buck my hips into his mouth, it’s so delicious and good that I can’t deny myself it anymore, I give in and melt and melt and _melt_. 

The telltale high starts to rise in my blood relatively fast, like the sudden receding of the waters before a tidal wave, I manage to find some shred of coherency to stammer, “K-Keith, I’m close-”

Keith pulls off my cock enough to give me a hooded gaze and it’s almost enough to make me finish on the spot, his lips kiss red and his eyes black under his bangs, his shoulders and neck marked up from my insissent kisses and his hair a wild set of curls from all my grabbing touches. He licks his lips with rough breathing escaping from between them before he growls, “Come on, then, finish. _‘Buried in me’_ .” He cocks an eyebrow at me with a smirk and my entire being collapses on itself as his lips wrap back around me and I’m _gone_ , I grab his hair and my breathing rockets out of time, I find myself squirming with the delicious stimulation. 

His hands hold my hips and I feel my dick press against the back of his throat and hot black spots splatter across my vision as I abruptly finish, I grab his hair at the last second as pleading moans slip past my lips and I can’t even articulate words, it’s just stammers and stumbles and whines as pleasure rocks through me not unlike getting smashed by a surprising wave at the beach. I come down from the high after a long moment and I start to become aware of being a person again, I feel Keith sit up from between my legs and when I open my eyes I see him wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Immediately my attention is snapped back up, I sit up as well and rest my hands on his waist, looking at him seriously as I try to forcefully sift through the heady clouds I’m surrounded in, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Keith answers after a moment with a husky, worn out voice, his eyes drift shut as his hands settle on my thighs. 

With a soft noise in the back of my throat I reach out and pull him closer to me, hugging him and nuzzling the inside of his throat affectionately, he lets out a soft, appreciative noise as his hands sift through my hair. After a moment I press a kiss to his collar and look up at him for a moment before a thought strikes me, I tap his lips with furrowed eyebrows, “... Did you swallow?”

Keith shrugs nonchalantly, his gaze flickers to mine with a soft light as he sits back on his heels, I look on with mute shock and a burning bush igniting in my face. He raises an eyebrow at me and runs his hands up and down my thighs beside him, his head tilted to the side as he rumbles, “What’s that look for?”

I swallow thick on a lump in my throat as I shake my head, the fierce red blossom continuing to burn as I mumble, “Just uh… surprised.” 

Keith flashes me a smirk that’s like a delicious punch to the gut as he shifts to get up, pulling his boxers back on. I get up just after him and rest a hand on his lower back to support him just in case he needs it but he doesn’t seem at all phased, sore, or otherwise out of sorts, which is a _complete_ relief. I’m nervous, inklings of ice had begun to crystalize in my fingertips as I reflect on those moments and guilt begins to form, _I’d totally lost control there. I think he enjoyed himself but that moment there where I didn’t think about him, when I was thinking about myself and wanting to satisfy what I wanted without thinking about him… that was terrifying. This is why I’m scared to top, it gives me too much power to use against him. Luckily I was able to rein myself in enough after he came but what if I didn’t? What if I kept going and he was stumbling and then maybe I accidentally hurt him-_

“You’re gonna have to wash your top blanket.” Keith’s voice snaps me out of my shivering thoughts when he pulls from beneath my touch, yanking off my comforter and tossing it in the corner as I shake my head a bit to pull my boxers back on. He grabs his pants where he abandoned them on the ground and sudden frost crawls up my throat, I reach out and take his hand to stop him. He glances over at me with a raised eyebrow and a confused light in his violet-gray eyes and without any thought I pull him close and kiss him softly. He melts into it almost immediately, his eyes flutter shut and his hands brace on my shoulders with featherlight touches. 

With his attention I pull away a little bit, my breath cascading over his lips as I murmur, “Don’t go. Please.” Keith’s eyes open and he regards me with a strange expression, open but confused and reserved, so I clear my throat, forcing down these _annoying_ clingy feelings to speak with a more normal voice, “I uh… I enjoy sleeping with you. If you don’t mind it I’d like it if you… um… stayed.”

Keith doesn’t answer for a long time, his eyes flicker back and forth between mine and I almost shrink beneath his gaze, they bore straight through me and into the wells of icy waters in my chest, borne with a pail. After a moment he nods a bit, a gentle rose starting to rise in his face as he mumbles, “... Yeah, okay. I mean- uh, sure. Yeah.” He lets out an annoyed huff as the words elude him and hitch, he looks off to the side with a set in his brow and it eases the exposed nerves in my lungs, I can’t help but chuckle.

“ _God_ . You are _so cute_ , you know that?” I grin and peck his fresh formed scowl before I tug him backwards and pull back the sheets to bring him with me into bed. “Now get in here, you. Without my comforter I’m gonna need that extra body heat.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Keith grumbles as he climbs in with me, as soon as he’s vaguely horizontal I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him close, immediately tangling my legs with his. He makes a soft noise in surprise as I practically engulf him, he lifts his head to look at me over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk, “You’re so… _touchy_.” 

“You’re fun to touch.” I mutter in response with a wicked grin, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck after a moment. “I can’t seem to get enough, touching you.” 

Keith lets out a soft, embarrassed huff as he slowly relinquishes to my grasp, lacing his fingers overtop of mine. I shuffle closer, pressing my chest flush to his back but eyeing the bite mark on his shoulder brings up icy worry in the pit of my stomach, so I touch his chin and turn him to face me with a meaningful look. He meets my gaze, tilting his head slightly when he sees the seriousness in my expression as I rumble softly, “Was that okay? I know, you’ve said you’re okay, this time I mean, like… did you enjoy it? Was that good for you?” 

Keith unwinds one of his arms from beneath the sheets and instead pulls them to lay on top, trailing my arm wrapped around him overtop the soft linen before he hums, “Yeah. I did.” Keith pauses after a moment before he shifts, I loosen my grip as he rolls over suddenly to face me, I look at him with wide eyes as he moves to cup my cheek with one hand while the other is braced on his elbow to hold himself up. His thumb brushes my cheekbone as his gaze flickers across my features, after a moment he whispers, “Why are you so tense about this?”

I feel a burn rise in my cheeks, I find my gaze unable to meet his for a moment so I slide it to the side, closely examining the beautiful crest of his wild hair beneath his jaw as I mutter, “What makes you think I’m tense?”

“You keep asking me if I’m okay. Way more than you did yesterday.” He touches my chin and with a gentle pull my gaze returns to his as he inspects my pupils, my throat tightens as he whispers, “Is it because something bad has happened with you before?”

I swallow on a dry patch of thicket, my tongue presses against the back of my teeth. Keith brushes stray strands of crimson from my eyes as he continues to watch me with scrutiny, I feel suddenly naked, which I sort of already am but this is a metaphorical naked, more like Keith suddenly just put me up on a pedestal to show the world, even though it’s just him. 

 _Back at it again with the two way vulnerability street. Fucking hell. I don’t want to drag him down in my past, this is supposed to just be something fun but I keep getting us bogged in bad… feelings, I guess. This is supposed to be fun, not sudden therapy. What do I even say to this? I’m sorry I’m so damn insecure, ‘cause my feelings for you are so strong that I’m so scared to mess up like I’ve messed up in the past because I want to do this_ **_right_ ** _, I want to treat you right and keep you happy._

_I’ll do better in the future. It’s nice that I can say that… there’s a future. But for right now I’ve got to honor that back and forth. I’ve gotta be vulnerable and relatively open about the past to sate him._

_Ugh. Fuck me._

“You could say that.” I mumble, touching Keith’s wrist over mine. I realize then at some point he’d lost his gloves, I hadn’t recognized it until just now, but I remember his hands on my thighs when he was blowing me, before I fingered him, still had them on but now he doesn’t have them. _Too lost in my own head to notice. God, what is wrong with me?_

“It just gets too easy for me to get caught up in how I feel rather than how I’m making you feel when I top.” I flicker my gaze down to Keith’s jawline, the blooming violets trailing across his pale skin is simply stunning to look at, hickeys are an ornament that suits him. “It’s also so easy for something to go wrong. I’m in better control when I bottom because I can’t hurt anyone from there, not really, but I could’ve hurt you if I’d lost focus for too long, that’s…” I bite my lip hesitantly for a moment, heat is building in my face as I stumble over my words when shame begins to build in my tone, “That’s uh… why I didn’t keep going after you finished. It’s easy to take what I want when you’re in those euphoric clouds that if I’d hurt you I don’t think you could’ve told me… That’s all it is, really. It’s not you or anything like that, you did nothing wrong. I just uh… it’s my own paranoia, I guess you could call it.” 

I risk a glance up at Keith once he’s been quiet for several seconds and I swallow when I see the darkness in his visage, like thunderclouds at dusk. Suddenly he speaks and his tone is sharp, “Will, I don’t think you’ve ever hurt anyone.” 

I blink at him stupidly for a solid ten seconds, but right as I open my mouth to say something the words fail to come to me. It doesn’t matter though, as Keith immediately drapes his hand over my mouth with a fierce glare, “Let me finish before you start arguing with me, alright?”

Swallowing on the growing ice cube in my throat I stare at him with wide eyes, any and all thoughts that I may have had spiral into the violet nebula in his eyes. Keith lets his hand lax over my mouth but he doesn’t move it, he starts talking with an intense flicker of indigo fire in his gaze, “You keep talking like this, like you’re some barely contained monster or something that’s just waiting to hurt someone. It doesn’t make any sense because that’s _not you_.” My lungs quit on me as Keith sits up more, regarding me with a continuously fiery expression like he’s about to face the Gladiator, murmuring, “You wanna know what I think?”

My chest spasms as I stare up at Keith with wide eyes, something in my expression makes Keith’s burning gaze simmer slightly as he cups my cheek again, his thumb brushes along my bottom lip. He continues in a softer tone, but his voice is just as fierce as before, “I think that _you’re_ the one who’s been hurt. A lot. I think people have hurt you and told you that it was your fault that they did, and you’re the idiot who believed them.” 

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t even know what my face is doing, all I know is that Keith’s hands trail from my jaw and down my neck, hitching on my Adam’s apple as he continues in a low tone, “It pisses me off that someone got into your head and twisted you into thinking like that. Like… making you think that it’s okay for you to be _used to_ having sex without lube, even though it hurts you. Or that it’s your fault that a guy who used you as an experiment doesn’t want anything to do with you after, or that it’s not okay for you to enjoy yourself when we’re in bed together, or that you’re just a walking accident away from some catastrophe or something like that.” 

Something in my chest starts to ache; I can’t explain where, how, or why, but this awful, radiating, hurt blooms in my stomach and radiates out like a stab wound as Keith cups my cheek, again. His gaze radiates warmth and his touch is like aloe on a burn as he regards me with furrowed eyebrows and a set jaw, slowly he murmurs, “You’ve gotta realize that’s fucked, right?”

The ache breaks something deep inside me, some porcelain pot that I didn’t know existed and sudden salt builds in the back of my throat like I accidentally swallowed seawater, I find myself sitting up. Keith shifts, watching me with an expression I don’t know what to do with and as I sit there ice latches onto my fingers and locks them in fists pressed against the mattress. 

I don’t know how I feel exactly. It’s a bad sensation; a horrible welling ache like having a bandaid ripped off that had been sitting there for too long and it stings in the worst way. But I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to feel, what the protocol is for this feeling, so I just… sit there. Struggling. Keith seems to sense it and after a moment he cups my face with both hands and touches his nose to mine, I close my eyes with a shaking breath as his voice hums between the close space, “I’m just trying to help you, Will. It’s gonna be okay.” A hard whine tries to escape between my clenched teeth as Keith briefly pecks my lips, he’s speaking in a voice barely above a whisper, “When you’re with me I’m gonna make sure you never feel like that again, alright? I promise.”

How I feel is beyond at a loss for words, I’m at a loss for feelings; I’m at a loss for who I am, where I am, why I’m here, what’s going on, there’s this spanse of aching nothing and confusion that mixes like a slushie in a blender. I reach up and gently touch Keith’s hands cupping my face, they almost don’t feel real for a brief moment with my lukewarm thoughts spiraling in the clouds. I struggle to focus my vision until they can clearly identify Keith’s searching gaze, the furrow in his brow as he regards me with worry. I don’t know quite what to do, not with my thoughts or with my hands so I fall back on what’s comfortable and slowly I lean forward and kiss him. 

He leans into it with a soft caress across my jawline and I make a sound that I can’t even begin to classify, so instead I dive in deeper and wrap my arms around Keith’s neck to pull him closer. I’m scared to start thinking about what he just said, I don’t know how to take it so I don’t; I keep his lips locked on mine to keep the radio silence going for as long as he’ll let me, which is a while. We sit like this, kissing with only lazy movements of our lips for a long time and it’s honestly one of the greatest kisses I’ve ever had; there’s no pressure, there’s only the proximity and the soaking taste of musk, Keith’s lips are salty and it’s rather erotic knowing it’s because of me, that tightens my stomach and inspires my hands to travel and rest on his thighs.  

Keith pulls away after a moment and taps my lips with his thumb, I open my eyes and look at him in a daze as he raises an eyebrow, “You alright? You’re quiet.” 

I chew on my lip, my thoughts buzz incoherently but eventually I find words enough to form some sort of sentence, “Yeah. I’m okay. Just… don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Keith rumbles softly in response. I flicker my gaze over at him as he wraps an arm around my middle and pulls me down to lie on my back, after a moment he grumbles with his face burying into my neck, “Now are we gonna cuddle or what?” 

The ice shakes free like a dog shaking its coat. I can’t help it, I find my face breaking into a grin as a loud laugh erupts, it’s almost a little too loud but it’s genuine, I feel it lifting up my chest so I don’t bother to hide it. I roll over and turn off the light before shifting closer to him, wrapping my arms tightly around his shoulders and sifting my fingers through his hair. In an afterthought I kiss his temple as he slots in, half on top of me like a large, content cat, he could almost be purring as I play with his hair.

Keith’s breath starts to slow, gracing against my throat in gentle drags and I swear only minutes later he’s fast asleep with his arms splayed, half draped over me, half askew. I run my fingers through his hair, down his back and drag my fingertips across his skin lazily as I close my eyes. To my surprise my thoughts don’t stampede and trample me into the ground as soon as all’s silent. I just… lie here. Content.

I’ve never been so comfortable as I’m trying to sleep, even though it’s proving hard to grasp at the moment but it’s not a burden or an annoyance, it’s almost welcome because I can revel in holding a sleeping Keith in my arms for longer, enjoying his warmth, soaking in his proximity. He smells like how table salt tastes and his skin is cool to the touch from long dried sweat, clammy and soft, and I find myself eyeing the marks and bruises and hickeys that litter his shoulders and neck. A part of me revels in their presence, another worries for his comfort, and still another wonders if I should take off my stone from around my neck and let him wear it so they can heal, and mitigate any of the soreness he’ll experience tomorrow. Two things stop me from doing it: one, I’d have to let go of Keith in order to do that and there’s no way in _hell_ I’m moving, and two, Keith would probably wake up tomorrow and be mad at me about it for some reason or another. Not true-blue anger, I don’t think Keith has ever been _truly_ angry with me, but I think it would be that kind of frustrated look he gets when he doesn’t agree with something I or someone else says. I don’t really know what specifically he’d give me that look about; it’s just a feeling.

Keith makes a soft, deep noise in the back of his throat as he shifts closer to me, his leg drapes over mine as his head rests mostly on my shoulder rather than the pillow and inexplicable warmth fills my being like a coffee pot. 

_I didn’t expect all this to turn out like… that._

_I don’t know what to think about what Keith said. I wanna tell him he’s wrong, that’s my first instinct but I also don’t know how to prove it. Especially without getting into specifics. If I were to break down every scenario in my past like an English teacher evaluating for meaning maybe I could, but the price for that is just too ridiculously high to make it worthwhile._

_“I think people have hurt you and told you that it was your fault that they did, and you’re the idiot who believed them.”_

I run my fingertips up and down Keith’s spine as he slumbers, burying my face into his raven black hair. It smells like the basic Altean soap in the showers and it’s invigorating; I don’t think I’ll smell it the same way again when washing my hair.

_I think… I think I’m so off tempo right now because he might be right._

_I always knew deep down that how Damien treated me wasn’t healthy, the things he said were meant to be manipulative so I couldn’t talk back or call him out on it without opening myself up to backlash. But I did that to him. I made him that way because he wasn’t like that before we got together, and he wasn’t like that in the beginning when we_ **_were_ ** _together, so what was the alternative explanation? I was the only changed factor._

_But Keith said that’s not the case. “I think people have hurt you and told you that it was your fault that they did, and you’re the idiot who believed them.”_

_… If he’s right then that would mean that Damien really was just like that. And all that stuff he said about how he was the only one who could ever love me, how no one else would want anything to do with me if I left him… he said that to make sure I really didn’t leave, not just because it was the truth. If it even is the truth. Which Keith says it isn’t._

_Have I been… what, internalizing it to the point that I couldn’t tell if Damien planted the seed or if it’s just a part of me? Blamed myself for Damien’s behavior to excuse him all this time? Most importantly, why haven’t I come to this conclusion myself? Or had this internal conversation until now?_

_… Because I didn’t want to think about it. No, I was scared to think about it. It hurts to linger over the memories, I’ve already thought so long and hard about what went wrong that I didn’t care to think past what I already had before I started partying to stop the thoughts all together. I’d said enough was enough._

Keith’s breath stutters and he presses his face into the crook of my neck, his hand is lax resting on my chest, just next to my lion’s stone. Something warm and pleasant rises in my chest, perpetual and soft, and I sift my fingers through his hair and kiss the top of his head. _I feel like I should be freaked out that Keith was able to deduce all that on his own without me telling him about anything. But I’m not. Strangely I feel kind of… relaxed. At peace._

_I always thought that there would come a point in our time together that if we were to become something serious I’d have to tell him about Damien and that it would end it for some reason or another. Like a second coming out. I didn’t expect what we would have to be serious until I started catching wicked fast feelings and that’s when I really started to shove those feelings down as hard as physically possible, I knew that if I had gotten to a place of intimacy with Keith that it would happen because that’s just what happens._

_I guess I’m just kind of… relieved that I won’t have to come right out with it. Keith just figured out enough on his own and he isn’t upset, or weirded out. Well he is upset, he said so, but not with me. He said I’d never feel that way around him._

_I don’t know how to feel about that._

_I’m certainly relieved. It’s exhausting to always have to hide a broken part of myself._

_Also, unrelated but still relevant, holy_ **_fuck_ ** _, I just topped Keith. And it was amazing. Oh my GOD. I’d never thought I would’ve seen that side of Keith, he was so… open. I don’t think he meant it to be, I think that’s why he held back so much but when he let go… It was beyond just sensual or sexy, it was truer than that, more raw. He told me he trusted me._

_I don’t know how to feel about that, either. Except good. Really, really good._

_Okay, speaking of relationships, what the hell even are we right now? Like… in the eyes of God I’d say we’re officially dating but I don’t really know if that’s true or not, or if we’re just really emotionally invested fuck buddies. With Damien he was like “go out on a date with me and be my boyfriend” and I was like “fuck yeah” and then from there on out he always introduced me as his boyfriend and I as his, that was that. Can I say that about Keith? Would he say that about me? I know labels don’t_ **_really_ ** _matter, it doesn’t change anything about how we feel but it would make me feel more secure in the state of our affairs and whatnot. Keith, my boyfriend. Yeah, that’s my boyfriend Keith, the Red Paladin. Mr. Brooding Wonder._

_Jesus Christ, is it weird that that immediately makes my pulse flutter? Fuck._

I continue to run my fingers through his hair, holding him close until I feel myself slipping slowly into the realm of dreams, the only thoughts on my mind is feeling the warmth of his breath on my neck and the title _boyfriend_ on my tongue. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really this chapter should be titled: "ha, gaaAAAAAAAAAAAAY"  
> Enjoy the growing happiness and mutual, safe, emotional vulnerability while it lasts.  
> And yes. That should make you afraid.  
> Very afraid.  
> 


	17. Too Good for Too Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has it going for him; he's grown a tight bond with the team, growing stronger every day, from fighting murderous robots to playing alien putt putt, he's finally in a place of stability with Keith... One could almost think with how things are proceeding, Will may just end up happy.  
> But in war, there's always the calm before the storm, the silence before the crack of lightning and the burst of thunder. It's not a matter of IF Will's luck runs out... it's a matter of when.  
> ...  
> *Warning: nsfw (lemon level, wow what year is it) at the beginning, post italics*

_On a black street with cracked gravel and broken concrete Keith stands before a building with windows of fractured glass. Shadows crowd his vision, he wipes his eyes to try and keep them clear. A figure appears with a familiar face, long forgotten but immediately recognizable. There’s the broken nose, the little scar on his left eyebrow, the warm, black ebony of his eyes like dark chocolate._

_“I’ll be home soon, kiddo.” He says, the drawl of his voice like dripping caramel as he ruffles Keith’s hair. His hands are rough and course like sandpaper, they’re cool and familiar._

_He turns away and heads inside the building and fear leaps into Keith’s mouth like bile, he recognizes that silhouette. He tries to run after him but his feet are glued to the floor, it’s like running through drying cement. Desperately he reaches out towards the doorframe with a sharp shout, “Dad!”_

_It doesn’t matter; he’s too late. The building erupts into flame with a massive explosion that sends a blastwave of fire across Keith’s face._

_Keith wipes his eyes as smoke begins to billow and he’s surrounded in flame, his mouth is dry as he desperately shouts again, “DAD!”_

_Nothing answers but the roar of fire burning around him and the smoke filling his lungs._

_“Remember: patience yields focus.” Keith starts when he hears the familiar voice and a hand extends out to him through the shadows of the smoke. He grabs on without a second thought and Shiro hauls him to his feet. The Shiro before the Galra got him, without the shock of white in the front, without the scar, and with his arm. Both Shiro’s are his, but this one hurts less to look at._

_“I know.” Keith answers as he struggles to breathe. Shiro releases him and his form starts to recede, Keith immediately reaches out for him again, “Wait, where are you going?”_

_“This goes beyond just the mission. I need to prove myself, that I can still do this even after what the doctor said. Adam didn’t understand that… but I thought you could.” Shiro’s voice echoes like they’re in the mess hall at the Garrison, his gaze flickers in barely concealed hurt amid the smoke. Keith shakes his head as the heat crowds around him, threatening to suffocate him. It does nothing but make Shiro continue to back away._

_“Don’t go!” Keith cries as Shiro pulls away. He reaches an arm out to grab him but the concrete cracks and he nearly tumbles into the dark chasm that separates them. He looks up with wide eyes but Shiro’s long gone from sight._

_“Shiro!” Keith shouts. Nothing answers but more fire, it’s closer now, he can feel it on the back of his neck. “SHIRO!” Keith’s hands clench into a fist as he steels his resolve, he bolts to his feet and with the running start he leaps with all of his might to clear the chasm._

_He falls short. He desperately grabs at the gravelly top but the rocks slide off, striking him in the face and making his grip unstable. He falls into the blackness, nothingness encompasses him, the only sensation is the wild fall and the terror of seeing the inevitable ground._

_…_

_Keith gasps and his eyes snap open with rapid breath, he bolts upright with his hands buried in the sheets. He feels a vague soreness in his backside in the motion, for a moment he wonders what sort of training he did to make this happen before he realizes where he is. Before he feels the weight of the arm draped over his waist even as he’s sitting upright in Will’s bed._

_‘Oh. Right.’ Keith thinks to himself. ‘That.’_

_Fresh embarrassment swarms his throat in a heat wave as he recalls what brought him here, their actions before he fell asleep. He didn’t think about what he was doing, as per usual, asking Will to top him. But he couldn’t help it. Just the way he sang to him that song… Keith couldn’t imagine Will actually being in that position. Will isn’t… like that, I guess, Keith can’t see him being a willing subject to complete submission…. But he could imagine_ ** _himself_** _that way. ‘Make me bleed I like it rough.’_

_It awoke something in him. Will did. Keith isn’t sure he thinks he likes whatever it was that he felt, that sudden unraveling. Will knew exactly how to pull on his strings. ‘You’re safe with me.’_

_He doesn’t think he likes this new feeling of vulnerability that Will’s getting out of him. It never ends well._

_“Hmm-you ‘kay?” Keith starts at the sound of the sleep-ridden voice and he looks to the side as the arm around him tightens and attempts to pull him closer. Will’s eyes flutter just a bit, in the darkness Keith knows he can’t see the hazel hues but he watches for them anyway, hoping to see the dawn._

_“I’m fine.” Keith murmurs softly, reaching out and caressing Will’s face with a thumb and forefinger. He brushes that strand of hair that always manages to find its way in his eyes behind his ear. “Go back to sleep.”_

_Will’s skin is always so cool to the touch, regardless of when or where. Not chilling, not in a bad or unnatural way, just… cold. Like a blast of air conditioning from a department store when walking by. Keith loves the feeling._

_He always feels so… overly warm. When he’s angry he feels like he could open his mouth and flames could come out, which is more often than Keith cares to admit. Then Will touches him and it all seems to simmer. Like a bucket of water dumped on a fire pit. Will told him earlier that he craved Keith’s touch because it brought him quiet. Keith begins to wonder if he’s so okay with Will touching him so much because he chills his inner fire. Dulls the sharp edges. Makes it easier to actually think before he does something, time sort of slows._

_“_ **_You_ ** _sleep.” Will’s words are slurred as he retorts in a voice full of sleepy sass, Keith can tell he’s not really awake in the slightest. Nonetheless Will grabs him tighter and tries to pull him closer as he mumbles, “Dream?”_

_Keith doesn’t answer for a long moment, but he relinquishes himself to Will’s insistent pulls. Much to the red haired boy’s delight, as he immediately wraps both of his arms around Keith like a koala. His expression is at peace, his eyelashes flutter as their noses brush and Keith finds his gaze lingering on the cascade of freckles across his nose and around his left eye, like half of a masquerade mask. Like stars. Keith traces them in search for constellations with his thumb as he mutters, mostly to humor himself, “Yeah, bad dream.”_

_“Got it.” Something in Will seems to click, and although it’s obvious he’s still fast asleep Keith blinks in surprise when his hands glide up and cup his face. His hands are always cold, not uncomfortably so, just like the outside of a waterbottle. His thumbs brush the corners of his mouth like he’s smoothing the edges of a book he’s about to read, then much to Keith’s shock he starts to sing._

_“Lay down your sweet and weary head,_

_Night is falling, you have come to journey’s end,_

_Sleep now, dream of the ones who came before,_

_They are calling,_

_From across the distant shore.”_

_Keith stares at Will with wide eyes, stunned. His voice is soft, it’s just below a whisper, if Keith stood on the other side of the room he wouldn’t be able to hear him. It’s beautiful, Will has a beautiful voice, Keith thought so for a while, but it didn’t really become apparent to him until that day he played that guitar he made on Olkarion to the group for the slumber party Shiro pulled together. He’d been in his element, Keith had never seen him so… open. Happy. By such a simple thing, too._

_“Why do you weep?_

_What are these tears upon your face?_

_Soon you will see,_

_All of your fears will pass away-_

_-Safe in my arms._

_You're only sleeping.”_

_Keith’s never been much for music. Not that he doesn’t like it or anything. He just never really thought about it or cared about it too much beyond “this sounds good” or “this sounds bad.” But now he cares a little bit. Now that he’s being serenaded by Will in such a beautiful manner that he’s a little incredulous that Will’s somehow still asleep._

“ _What can you see on the horizon?_

_Why do the white gulls call?_

_Across the sea, a pale moon rises,_

_The ships have come to carry you home._

_And all will turn to silver glass,_

_A light on the water,_

_All souls pass.”_

_Keith wonders if he should wake Will up. If this is completely an unconscious thing for him or not. Despite the slur of his sleepy words Keith can understand the words clearly, it’s a poetic song that he’s never heard before, some sort of lullaby. He should maybe wake him up. Will might be embarrassed about this, probably apologize all blushy like he gets, crinkle his nose. But Keith doesn’t want to. There’s something about Will’s sleepy face so open and at peace, inches away from Keith’s, that makes his stomach turn over in a way he just can’t explain. Like he ever could. He sucks at words. ‘Will could probably explain it,’ Keith thinks to himself with an internal shake of his head, ‘He always knows what to say.’ Keith trails his hands across Will’s forearms where they rest between them and counts the constellations that dot his skin. He kisses the crescent moon shaped scar on his palm pressed to his cheek._

_“Hope frays along the realm of night,_

_Through shadows falling,_

_Out of memory and time._

_Don't say we have come now to the end._

_White shores are calling._

_You and I will meet again._

_And you'll be here in my arms,_

_Just sleeping.”_

_A memory clicks in Keith. He recalls laying in an unfamiliar bed in a pitch black room. Listening to Will’s voice through a thick, wavering cloth draped over him. He was drunk, back on Olkarion. Not blackout, but definitely drunk. Definitely not blackout because he remembers the night vividly. He thought about it almost every day after. Wishing he knew what he could’ve done so that it turned out different. What he could do about it after the fact. To get Will to get his stupid head out of his ass. He never could come up with an answer, and that pissed him off. Keith feels bad because he was mad at Will about it for a while. It didn’t have to be complicated but he_ **_made_ ** _it complicated. But he gets why he was like that now. It’s part of why he feels so guilty about it. He didn’t realize that it came from this kind of hurt Will was harboring. That fills him with a different kind of rage. The same kind he gets when he sees Shiro clenching his prosthetic fist._

_But he remembers that moment clearly. Hearing Will’s voice in the dark room. What had he said? His mom sang him to sleep when he had a nightmare. Then he got too old and he sang for himself. At the time it made Keith’s chest hurt. It still does. He’d forgotten that moment until Will sang for the group and then it came rushing back. Made Keith realize that he wanted to hear Will sing because of what music meant to him, not just because he… liked him._

_It was hard to try and pull himself together with all that was bouncing in his head when they were going to the Blade of Marmora’s base. Makes him carsick just thinking about it._

_Will doesn’t stop for Keith’s sudden onslaught of thoughts. His eyes are still closed as he hums for Keith._

_“What can you see on the horizon?_

_Why do the white gulls call?_

_Across the sea, a pale moon rises,_

_The ships have come to carry you home._

_And all will turn to silver glass,_

_A light on the water,_

_Grey ships pass,_

_Into the west.”_

_Will caresses Keith’s cheek and his hands go lax. Keith starts when Will suddenly presses forward and grasps his face in his hands and presses a kiss to the center of his forehead. Feels like a drop of cold water on a frying pan, it sizzles and scorches but ultimately cools and soothes. His lips continue to brush the crest of Keith’s brow as he rumbles in a gentle tone, “Inameth hass onlui aglonanad, hi gwathren; fuin aulan aglon.”_

_Keith blinks stupidly for a solid minute as Will merely smiles like he didn’t speak straight jibberish. He presses closer and nuzzles Keith’s shoulder and grows still without another word._

_‘I suppose I shouldn’t try and guess what that was all about.’ Keith thinks to himself, ‘He is just sleeping.’_

_So instead Keith wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him closer. Will makes a content noise in response. He runs his hands through his hair gently. The crimson locks are soft beneath his touches._

_Keith finds himself kissing the top of Will’s head as his arms tighten around Keith’s waist. He shivers in the proximity and he finds his eyes starting to close again, exhaustion creeping back to get a hold on him. Subconsciously he pulls Will tighter to him as a breath leaves his lungs. To his relief smoke doesn’t fill them as he drifts back to sleep._

_…_

_“I’m not afraid.”_

… 

First thing I’m conscious of is the juxtaposing warm and cold around me. As in, my front is warm, my face is pressed against something warm and my chest is as well, but my feet and my back are cold as hell, like I kicked off the blankets when I fell asleep. Movement. I find myself blinking in the light darkness of the room to see the halo of dark, wild hair curling as the blue light of my holographic panel shines in the space.

Keith moves to get up but on impulse I tighten my arms around his waist, nuzzling the space between his shoulderblades where he sits in his half upright position. Keith makes a soft, annoyed noise, my eyelashes flutter as I try to clear the sleep from them only enough to see the shadows of Keith’s bangs hanging in his eyes. 

“Nuhuh.” I rumble with a sleep groggy voice, keeping my arms locked all the way around his waist, “You ain’t got nowhere to be. Get back here.”

I can hear Keith’s slight smirk in his voice as he murmurs in a husky manner, “Are you actually awake or sleep talking again?”

I blink a little bit more at this, raising an eyebrow at Keith once he relents to my pull, twisting to lay back down, facing me. “I sleep talk?” I ask with a note of confusion.

I can see the glint of Keith’s teeth in the minimal light in the room as his gaze flickers to the side, “Just a bit. It was cute.”

I huff indignantly as a rising scarlet climbs across my features. “Oh man,” I bite my lip as Keith lets out a harder breath through his nose to signal a laugh, I reach out and run my fingers through his hair with a sheepish expression, “I didn’t admit any deep dark secrets, did I?”

Keith shakes his head, rolling a bit to lay more on his back before he closes his eyes again. I press closer, sitting up on my elbow to hover over him and pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. Keith’s slow to respond but he returns the sweet touch after a few moments, but as I move to pull away his hand rises and cups the back of my neck to hold me in the kiss. I let out a sigh of contentment and trail my fingertips along his jawline to his chin before cradling it between my thumb and forefinger, Keith responds with a smirk against my lips as he nips on my lip surprisingly harshly; it breaks skin and I feel my lip start to bleed a little, mixing the salty taste on my tongue with the metallic undertone. 

I pull away with press my thumb to the cut, raising an eyebrow at Keith with a soft laugh, “Your teeth are so _sharp_.” 

Keith blinks at me stupidly for a moment before he slightly sits up as well, holding my chin at hand and pushing my hand away to look at the cut before he runs his fingertip across it, I feel nothing, not even a sting. “Already healed.” He huffs as he taps something hard and cool on my chest, when I look down I see the soft white light my stone was emitting dying to nothingness. 

“... Handy.” I reply with a wry smirk before I remeet Keith’s gaze, cocking an eyebrow after a moment, “Hey, bare your teeth for me.” 

Keith blinks at me stupidly for a moment, “... Huh?”

I shake my head with another laugh as I cup his jaw myself, pushing his upper lip up to see his canines, I get a good enough look to see the sharp edge before Keith pulls away from my tug with an indignant huff. “Your canines _are_ sharp. _”_ I murmur in confirmation, regarding him with a curious tilt of my head, “Not like… vampire levels or anything. I think I would’ve noticed _that_ , but like… they’re pointier than mine.” 

Keith raises an eyebrow at me with a perplexed light in the black depths of his gaze, “No one’s told me that before.” 

“Well, is there anyone else who’s intimately familiar with your mouth for a second opinion?” This coaxes a laugh out of Keith, a genuine, warm one that sends chills up my spine. “Think that that’s the Galra bit of you shining through?” I ponder, regarding Keith softly with the genuine question hanging idly. 

He pauses, looking off to the side in thought before he shrugs, “I guess…?” 

“It’s kinda funny, I’ve been thinking about that recently,” I begin with a pensive tone, tilting my head to the side, “You look human, like, _really_ human, especially in comparison to the Galra we’ve met. So it makes me wonder whether you just inherited a bunch of human characteristics or something, because like… I feel that a half cross between a Galra and a human would make you super tall, at least, if not the fuzzy ears or purple fur or purple skin or something. Or purple hair. Wouldn’t that be cute?” Keith blinks at me like I just grew two heads as I continue with a wandering tone, rambling on down the current mental path, “So maybe those Galra traits are secondary in comparison to human genes. Or less prominent than the human traits? I took AP Bio once, I know what I’m talking about.” I joke with a wry smirk in Keith’s dumbfounded direction. I reach out and tapping a finger against his soft lips thoughtfully, “Sorry, tangent. Honestly, if there’s anything to be gained from this, it’s the absolute _pleasure_ it is to be taller than you despite the genetic disposition stacking against me.” 

Keith narrows his eyes at me as he replies in a factual manner, “You are not taller than me.”

I cock an eyebrow with a challenging look, “Coran begs to differ, _number five._ ” 

Keith huffs indignantly, sitting up more on his elbows as he regards me seriously, “Then it can’t be by more than an inch, or something.”

“Sure, whatever helps you feel better.” I tease with my tongue caught between my teeth. Keith growls playfully and suddenly closes the distance between us, pushing my tongue back into my mouth. I melt into the kiss immediately, closing my eyes and brushing his bangs behind his ear as I cup his cheek and I shiver when I feel his hand drag across my forearm and then up. With an insistent nudge on my shoulder Keith pushes me onto my back, I smirk against him and deepen the kiss, wrapping my arms lazily around his neck and tangling my fingers into his hair, his cinnamon is muted with morning breath but I really can’t find it in me to give the slightest fuck about it. Keith shivers beneath my touch and with a press of his tongue against my bottom lip he rolls over on top of me, maneuvering until he’s wedging himself between my legs and my breath hitches, without hesitation I tighten my hands in his hair and lift my hips into his lap. His hands grab my thighs and help in pulling me closer before they gravitate to my waist, holding on with splayed fingers as his teeth gently drag on my bottom lip and I let out a shaky moan, my sensitivity is suddenly cranked to the max like the speakers of a car on a road trip. 

Keith’s lips trail away from mine and grace my jawline towards my throat, I trail my hands along his neck and shoulders when his hands tighten on their hold and he grinds his hips down against me; I let out a sudden and immediate moan, I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t too busy drowning in the sensation. Keith smirks against my skin, a hot breath cascading against it as he whispers in a husky voice, “Not feeling so tall now, are you?” He drags his hands down to my hips, his teeth suddenly dig firmly into the side of my neck and rip a moan out of me, now against my will as indignation rises in my blood. I squirm against his hold, a bratty part of me bubbling forth as I reach around and dig my fingertips into the small of his back, Keith sucks on the bitemark he left with harsh suction and with it goes my breath. It’s an honest struggle to keep my head out of the clouds but newfound determination keeps me going as I slide my hands to his forearms and push his hands up my bare chest and lift my hips more to grind on him purposefully. Keith has to keep himself up with one elbow pressed on the pillows by my head as the threat of a moan pushes against the skin on my pulse when he laps his tongue against it. 

Teasingly I let my lips part with a heady sigh meant to scatter his thoughts, keeping his free hand busy feeling up my chest as I purr playfully, “I can still make you weak from down here. Don’t believe me?” I roll my hips up to meet his and I’m met with a rugged gasp against my neck as Keith’s touch grows taut, his free hand grabs my thighs where I have them in a lock around his waist. “I can _certainly_ prove it to you.”

There’s a sudden, loud knock on the door, jarring both Keith and I so violently we nearly knock heads as a sharp bark follows the abrupt sound, “Wake up sleeping beauty, it’s time to cop some nutrition!” _Lance._

Keith looks at me and I at him with wide eyes before I let out a laugh, my chest warms at the sight of Keith’s embarrassed, half lilted smile. I sit up on my palms once I’m able to recover from my laughing and gently peck Keith’s lips, “To be continued.” With that I pull my legs from around him and shimmy my way out of bed, I can hear Keith let out a short breath of a laugh from behind me. I run my fingers through my hair and tug on some clothes from my drawers as Keith stands, I look over at him as he regards his clothes from yesterday with a narrow eyed expression; I can’t help but pause and turn to him with a roguish tease in my tone, “Do enjoy the walk of shame. At least _you_ have your shirt.” 

Keith rolls his eyes at me and pulls on his clothes without complaint, as I’m tugging my shoes on Keith picks up his jacket from the ground and something small and heavy falls from the pocket and drops to the ground. I raise an eyebrow and pick it up, examining it briefly before handing it back to him; it looks like an old timey walkman, less than half the size, but with the same two ended buttons on the top and bottom. Keith takes it back wordlessly, so I gently nudge him with a raised eyebrow, “What’s that?” 

“Communicator.” Keith responds evenly, running a hand through his hair in the back as it crests just over that _ugly popped collar what the fuck_ \- upon seeing my look of confusion he elaborates with a careful tone, “From Kolivan.” 

“Oh.” I nod with a respectful hum, reaching out and gently combing my fingers through Keith’s hair to settle the wild curls from sleep. It takes only a few tugs, and to my surprise I come across no tangles, his hair sifts through my fingers like fine sand. _Stupid alien heritage._ Keith looks at me with a wide eyed, surprised expression that I only notice once my hands fall, I tilt my head to the side with a raised eyebrow of confusion, “What?”

“... Nothing.” Keith replies simply, shaking his head slightly before he turns towards the door, I quickly follow after, walking out of my room and into the hall. 

At the end of the hall stands the rest of the team, so I don’t even get the breath to pursue Keith’s dropped subject before Pidge is all over my ass. “Called it!” She cries before she whirls around towards Hunk with a wry smirk, “You owe me.” Hunk immediately groans in complaint. However, despite the red hot flash of embarrassment that crowds my throat into a corner, to my distinct pleasure I notice that Pidge’s hoodie is inside out, draped over her frame with soft, fuzzy bits clinging to strange places over her also inside out cargo pants. _It’s almost like I won the bet yesterday twice over. Getting Lance and Pidge in one fell swoop. Thanks Keith._

Now that we are all together we head to the dining room, to my surprise since I expected Keith to go and change clothes but apparently not, he seems perfectly content to wear the same thing as yesterday today. He doesn’t even look off, or dirty or anything like that, which, honestly, is _so_ unfair. “Called what?” Keith asks with a genuine tilt of confusion, his gaze on Pidge’s form in front of him. 

Pidge waggles her eyebrows but before she can say anything Shiro lets out a tired sigh, “Let’s just have breakfast without having this discussion, _please.”_

Keith blinks at this and then over at me with a questioning eyebrow, I quickly shake my head with a cutoff gesture, _you don’t wanna know._ Keith blinks again, once, twice, before he shrugs and looks up, appearing to let it drop. 

Breakfast itself is uneventful, but before we get into what training Shiro has in store for us today the door to the dining room opens and Allura strides in. She’s wearing her Voltron-inspired armor and her hair is pinned up in intricate braids at the crest of her head, and when she walks in all our gazes collectively fall on her. She wastes no time, her gaze hones immediately on Pidge as she speaks, “Excuse me, I apologize for the intrusion but Ryner just informed me of something that I know will interest you. _All_ of you.” 

“What is it?” Pidge asks with a raised eyebrow, twirling her spoon idly between her fingers with a surprised expression that she is the one being addressed.

Allura clasps her hands over her heart as a small but serious smile begins to form, “There is a small band of freedom fighters that move in and out of this quadrant. Only a few - no more than a handful - but I have just learned that among them are humans from Earth.”

All of our attentions snap from wherever they were, each of us straighten and look at Allura and one another with wide eyes, but Pidge practically leaps to her feet as soon as the words leave Allura’s mouth, her palms plant on the table with a _slam_ , “Is it Matt? Or my father?” 

“I am unsure. But what I do know is that the three of them are here for a few days because of an engine failure-” 

“Where are they?” Pidge demands, her gaze is sharp and bursting forth with inner fire. 

Allura, sensing her urgency, replies quickly, “The Olkari main landing platform. Come with me, I can take you there.”

Pidge has never rushed to the doorway so fast in her life, and we immediately fall in behind her as Allura leads us out. She walks at a brisk pace, but even though it’s the fastest speedwalk I’ve done since I was almost late for my AP US History exam Pidge looks like she’s barely holding back from sprinting, I think the only thing that is keeping her from doing so is the fact that she doesn’t know where to go. 

We take the surface projector down to the surface of Olkarion and when the doors open we’re basked in the soft daffodil light of the dawn; the skies are painted in watercolor swathes of gold and a burning orange on the skyline, making the trees beyond the tall emerald spires of the city gleam like shiny blood in its light. Allura heads to the far side of the platform and steps onto one of the Olkari flat surfaced transporters, as soon as we’re all piled on she takes control and guides the hovering craft over the city, which has already begun to bustle with activity. Similar transporters are already flitting through the skies below and above us, between buildings and around spires, with Olkari upon them going about their day, doing Olkari things. 

It’s obvious when we get to the main landing platform, as it’s basically a massive airstrip on top of a large, rectangular building, much like the platform the Castle landed upon save it’s about twice as large, but for normal sized aircrafts like the ones I see littering the area, ranging from the size of cars to massive commercial airlines, it’s ample enough space. Allura sets us down on the edge of this ramp, as we disembark she points to the far left where there’s a massive, open sided building that looks like a mechanic’s shop, inside are a fuck ton of ships being worked on by little figures we can barely see from here. “Their ship is in there, in the far right hand side from where we are right now.” 

That is all the information Pidge needs to take off at a sprint for the building. 

Shiro hesitates, looking at each of us for a moment before he turns to Allura, “Thank you for this. Where will you be later?”

“I have business to attend to at the teludav, attuning my quintessential mark upon it for the wormhole when the time comes.” She flickers her gaze downwards only briefly before she looks beyond, jutting her chin towards the direction Pidge ran off to, “Go on. I’ll bring you any updates on the teludav later this afternoon.” 

“Thank you.” Shiro nods graciously again before he waves for us to follow him as he runs after Pidge, who is already almost to the building. At this new set pace we all find ourselves running to catch up with various levels of tangible excitement passing along to each of us like chained lightning. 

The building, more of a hanger now that I see it up close, is at least as large as my school, if my school had an addition 4 or 5 levels to it. The ceilings are vaulted and tall, like a canopy over the magnitude of the room that is bustling with activity, Olkari walking to and from ships with a shocking amount of variety in the alien races I see, I spot a humanoid with blue, porous skin and red circles on top of their head like the ones on Pikachu’s cheeks, another that looks like an alligator head strapped to a lizardman’s body, _horrifying to look at to say the least_ … So many more that they melt one into the other. None of them, however, look human. Not even close. Pidge has disappeared into a crowd and the five of us come up short, weaving through Olkari and a couple of other alien races that I don’t get a chance to closely examine as I’m far too busy trying to keep up with the others. I hear Hunk’s voice to my left and I squeeze between a pair of Olkari speaking in their whale-like tongue to get to him and I manage to break out of the bustle to a relatively more open space surrounding a run down, boxy ship. It’s about the size of a large SUV back on Earth, enough to fit all of us inside of it if pressed, with a dark black finish over its metal surface. At one point I don’t think the ship was originally black, I can see gleams of dark viridian and hints of violet beneath its surface, but it’s apparent to me that it was added afterwards to both mask the origin of the ship while also acting as a natural cover, as the black would easily melt into the darkness of space.

Pidge stands beside it, but my immediate attention focuses on the two people standing with her. People. Human people. 

Both of them are women. One has a deep, deep, chocolate colored skin with her hair in foxtail braids down her back and laced at the crown and out of her face, she has to be up in her mid 40’s at least, and she stands at around Shiro’s height, well beyond six feet with slim shoulders and powerful legs for days, like a sprinter. The other is Asian in descent with an ebony pixie cut and a rather gruesome scar over her left eye, leaving it a pale, milky color, she’s probably somewhere between her 30’s and 40’s and she’s rather short, below eye level with me, around Allura’s natural height. Both of them are wearing the same attire, a loose, gray and black flight suit with dark brown accents along the shoulders and hems in gently sloping stripes, and strapped to their hips with a black belt is what looks like a black hilted handgun, like the ones that cops used to carry.

I realize in that moment that these are the first two humans that we’ve seen since we left Earth, the first two humans besides one another in the span of a _month_. Immediate excitement seizes my veins as I close the distance to join Pidge’s side. 

“-guy with you? Does he look kind of like me?” Pidge gestures to her own face as if case in point, looking between the two women desperately. 

The woman with the skin like rich earth shakes her head, and to my shock she speaks in a language I absolutely do not recognize, _“Cha, unezinwele eziphuzi.”_  

Pidge deflates and pouts, hanging her head fully before she mumbles, “... Oh.”

The woman beside her with the scar over her slanted eye reaches out and cups her cheek, _“Đừng lo lắng, tôi chắc chắn anh ấy sẽ trở lên. Tất cả chúng ta cuối cùng cũng làm.”_

Pidge meets her gaze with a soft burn in her eyes, I can see the beginnings of tears form as she suddenly sniffs, wiping her nose on her sleeve that is inside out before she stammers, “Thank you… I appreciate that.”

I blink once, twice, before I realize that the others have gathered around me, and they all look as equally confused as I am upon witnessing what he did. “Uh, hey there?” Lance ventures first, waving a hand amicably as he approaches and slings an arm over Pidge’s shoulders. The two women look at him with matching expressions of raised eyebrows before he continues, “Name’s Lance, Blue Paladin of Voltron… and you are?”

Lance’s arm over her shoulder seems to reawaken Pidge as she disengages, pointing first to the woman with the scar before gesturing to the other, “Oh uh, this is Phuong, and Amahle.”

Amahle, upon being referenced, smiles at us with a friendly wave, _“Sanibonani.”_

Hunk tastes his lips for a moment before he speaks, “Uh… Sorry, if I may ask, what language is that?”

Amahle blinks at Hunk cluelessly before she looks to her companion for assistance, who merely shrugs with a _fuck if I know_ look. Pidge glances over at Hunk incredulously, narrowing her eyes as she huffs, “... English, Hunk. You hit your head on your way here?”

Shiro resolutely shakes his head, his arms crossed as he regards the women before him, “No, that isn’t English.” He fixes his gaze on Pidge then, his gaze tilting slightly to the side, “... Can you understand them?” 

“Uh, yeah?” Pidge huffs, right as the Asian woman with the scar turns to her and speaks quickly, _“Họ đang nói gì?”_

Pidge blinks at her stupidly, “You can’t understand them either?” 

“Wait, you understood that?” Lance asks incredulously, staring at her with wide eyes, “That was _definitely_ not English, dude. Or Spanish. I’d know, I know both!” 

Keith smirks from his place on Shiro’s right, “I sure hope you know English, Lance.” This grants him a minute glare and a raspberry from the blue eyed man in question.

Pidge furrows her eyebrows and I can almost hear the chug of the steam powered engine of her thoughts powering by as she flickers her gaze down, and suddenly her gaze hitches on her toes. She pulls on the neck of her inside out hoodie and produces the Green Lion’s stone from within and I can see its soft, lime colored light pulsing even in the bright lights of the hanger bay. 

I can see her thinking process’s result in the motion. “You think your lion’s stone is acting like a transladazine?” 

Pidge lets out a soft breath as her gaze, hidden behind her glasses and wild strands of brown hair, lifts to mine, “We’re about to find out.” She takes off her lion’s stone and hands it off to me, wordlessly I take it. I don’t feel anything remarkable happen, not at all like when I touch my stone, but I do _feel_ a little something, a deep set hum in my left hand’s fingertips. That’s when I notice the sounds of the hanger have morphed; the background noise of all the alien’s voices all grow more unified, recognizable. I furrow my eyebrows and purse my lips before I flicker my gaze to the two confused women before me, who now eye both me and Pidge with mixed expressions. Anxiously I wave a hand and clear my throat, “Uh, hi. I’m Will, nice to meet you. Do you understand me?”

Amahle immediately perks, her eyes growing wide as her gaze hones in on the Green Lion’s stone in my hand. “Interesting.” Her voice is the same as when she spoke earlier, deep alto and accented as she takes a step forward to examine the stone, “Where does this come from?”

“Our lions gave them to us as a part of our bond.” I answer for her, jutting my thumb to the others behind me, “We’re the Paladins of Voltron. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of us, have you?”

“Hey! You can understand them!” Hunk cries excitedly, his eyes growing wide as he latches his gaze onto Pidge, “Your lion’s stone acts as a transladazine! How cool is that?!” 

Pidge’s eyes are equally wide as she looks at me and then the women before she nods, “Wow. I guess it does.” 

“The Paladins are children?” Phuong interrupts with furrowed eyebrows. Her jaw is sharp and her tone is as hard as it is stony as she flickers her gaze to each of us individually before her gaze settles over my shoulder. “Led by Takashi Shirogane. I heard you had died.” 

Shiro blinks, obviously recognizing his own name but not the other words as Amahle turns to her with a furrowed expression, “He looks pretty alive and well to me. If a bit roughed up. But I suppose you can relate to that, can’t you?” 

Phuong doesn’t seem at all phased, she doesn’t even blink. 

“Yeah, Shiro’s our leader, he pilots the Black Lion.” I answer tentatively, watching the pair of them with growing caution, Phuong’s harsh gaze and severe exterior puts me on edge. I blink as I realize I’m still holding the Green Lion’s stone in my hand, quickly I hold it out to Pidge with an apologetic expression, “Sorry, you can have this back.” 

She shakes her head briskly, “No no, give it to Shiro, he should be able to talk to them.” 

Shiro blinks over at her at the mention of his name, I turn to him and press her lion’s stone into the palm of his hand right as Amahle speaks, “Well, all that aside, it’s nice to finally see a familiar _ubuso.”_ Her voice immediately reverts to her native tongue as I hand off the stone, now that I’ve heard her speak a few times I think that her accent is South African, _so perhaps the language she is speaking is Zulu. Or Afrikaans._ _Phuong’s tongue I don’t recognize at all, I know it’s not Chinese or Japanese, I’ve seen enough action movies to recognize what those languages are supposed to sound like, and that’s not it._

 _“Những trận chiến nào bạn đã tham gia?”_ Phuong asks Shiro with the same, matter of fact tone and set expression zoned in solely on Shiro, but what bothers me the most is seeing the gleam of green in her eyes as she stares directly at the Green Lion’s stone. I look over at Pidge and when she senses my gaze she returns it, I mouth to her as subtly as I can manage, _‘Keep your stone close on you. I don’t trust them.’_

Pidge raises an eyebrow at me but I don’t get a chance to elaborate further as Shiro answers, “We’ve faced Zarkon head to head a few times, enough to know what he’s capable of. We’re here for a few days working on a plan to take him down once and for all.” 

 _“Kanye naphakade?”_ Amahle replies with a cocked eyebrow, her hands resting on her waist comfortably, _“Uyazi ukuthi ubengumbusi iminyaka eyinkulungwane?”_

“Yeah, we know, but we’re confident that we will be able to succeed.” Shiro replies, now looping Pidge’s stone around his neck so that he doesn’t have to keep holding it in his palm, and it’s actually weird to see it on him. Well, seeing any color besides _black_ on him is weird, in all honesty. _This bitch was born to be the Black Paladin._

“Yeah, have you _seen_ our lions?” Lance retorts, sidling up next to Shiro with crossed arms and a cocky expression as he elbows him slightly, “Tell ‘em what I just said.” 

Shiro merely gives Lance a slight side eye before he continues his discussion with the pair, “So you’re freedom fighters? Does that mean that there’s an organized resistance?” 

Much to our dismay Amahle shakes her head before she speaks, her language uses a lot of clicks and animated hums that is genuinely really beautiful to listen to, like a babbling brook, _“Cha, amaphakethe amancane nje. Sikhululwe yiqembu labafokazi eliye langena esigangeni ukusindisa umngani wabo-”_

“Shiro, can you translate for us what they’re saying?” Keith asks after a moment with a polite tone, standing directly to Shiro’s right with his arms crossed and his gaze locked firmly on Phuong, who I notice is staring directly back at him with a matching look that sends shivers of apprehension up my spine. 

Shiro glances over at him briefly before he nods, “He just asked me to repeat what you are telling me.” He says to Amahle, who nods as Shiro relays her information, “She just said that there’s no organized resistance, just small packs dispersed throughout the universe. Her and Phuong were rescued by one that was trying to break out one of their own from a Galra prison.” 

Phuong nods briskly, her gaze pulling to Shiro’s like a rake through leaves as she speaks, _“Chúng tôi chủ yếu theo dõi các lô hàng tinh túy và cố gắng thực hiện cú đánh nhỏ và chạy. Chúng tôi phải tiếp tục di chuyển qua các góc phần tư để tránh bị phát hiện.”_

“They’ve been attacking quintessence shipments in hit and runs, but they have to keep moving to avoid getting caught.” Shiro translates for us, the light green light pulsing against the black material of his shirt on the center of his chest like his own heartbeat is shining through. 

Phuong nods again, _“Vâng. Kể từ khi Olkarion được giải thoát khỏi sự chiếm đóng và lấy lại góc phần tư này, chúng ta đã có thể sử dụng nó như một nơi tôn nghiêm.”_

“Since Olkarion’s been freed they’ve been able to use it as a sanctuary of operations.” Shiro reports. Phuong once again nods. 

“Hold on, so, quick question, if you don’t mind me asking,” Hunk suddenly pipes up, his gaze flickering between the two women, “How do you two understand each other? Your languages are like… totally different.” 

Shiro reports Hunk’s question to the pair, and Amahle answers with a flashing smile full of pearly teeth in his direction, _“Tôi đã học.”_

Phuong nods with a jutting chin towards Amahle, _“Njengoba nami.”_

“... Okay, that’s pretty cool.” Hunk beams suddenly with a look of utmost respect before he lets out a slow whistle, “Wow, it must have been really hard for you guys out here, with no one to talk to and all this alien tech and stuff. We’ve been at the Castle, which has like, English translations and stuff built in which is helpful but I _still_ get all confused sometimes, I can’t imagine how bad it would be if I wasn’t with you guys!” He looks to us with a weepy gaze, making my heart warm with softness in the back of my throat. I reach out and pat his shoulder as Shiro relays the relevant part of the message on his behalf, Hunk looks back at me with an affectionate and friendly gaze that spikes the feeling to another level. 

 _“Ngenhlanhla sinomshayeli wethu wendiza.”_ Amahle says with a fond smile thrown over her shoulder at their vessel, _“Kufanele ngabe ubuya emhlanganweni wakhe noRyner kungekudala.”_

“Their pilot is meeting with Ryner right now and should be back soon.” Shiro says with a look thrown over at us as Phuong adds with a matter of fact tone, _“Anh ấy là người Mỹ như bạn.”_

Shiro’s eyes widen and his breath stalls, “... And he’s American like us.” 

“But it isn’t Matt. Or my father.” Pidge’s voice is so forlorn and sad that my attention immediately diverts to her gaze on her shoes. My heart aches, and immediately I reach out and wrap an arm around her shoulders which she seems to appreciate, as she leans into my touch and rests her head on my collarbone. 

“But then it’s gotta be somebody from the Garrison!” Lance suddenly pipes up with wide excited eyes, “Who else could it be?”

“A lot went missing in the outer reaches of our solar system.” Keith replies in a cool, even tone, “If Shiro and the Holts were captured by the Galra, it’s possible they were, too.” 

I shake my head with a firm sweep of my hand, “But they were all reported as destroyed.” 

Pidge shakes her head, her eyebrows set in a dark furrow, “No, they _all_ went missing. The Garrison just covered it up when it started becoming a… a trend.” 

I blink at her with wide eyes, stunned, and for a few moments I find my heart stalling in my chest. 

_They all went missing? Just like Shiro and the Holts? And if they got captured by the Galra and survived… Escaped…_

I force the thought from my mind before it can even begin to form, gritting my teeth and shaking my head like a wet dog as Lance lets out a low whistle, “So, who do you think it is? They said he’s a pilot, right? What’s he look like?” 

“Blond.” Pidge answers on that account, gesturing towards Amahle, who nods in understanding in her direction. 

“... That narrows it down.” Lance huffs, crossing his arms indignantly, “I can think of at least three pilots off the top of my head who’re blonde!”

Pidge lets out a soft breath from beside me and disengages from my hold, I let her go after giving her one last pat on the shoulder. She turns her head with a crestfallen expression that brightens slightly as she looks over my shoulder, perking up as she calls, “Oh hey, Ryner! Ryner, over here!” 

I turn around with a raised eyebrow to see the Olkari leader striding into the hanger, two other Olkari trailing behind them with small holographic tablets at hand and weighted metal batons barely the side of my forearm on their hips, like tubes. They’re donned in an intricately folded, earth toned wrap that swallows their frame and makes them look like rather regal, despite the simplicity of their attire. _Perhaps it is the stance in which they hold themselves that exhibits this aura._ They examine us with a warm gaze, holding their arms out wide as they approach, “Good morning, Paladins. I heard you had made your way here.” 

Shiro nods as he takes the Green Lion’s stone off of his neck, holding it out to Pidge as he speaks in a militant fashion, “Yes. The Princess came and told us that some human freedom fighters were here, and we wanted to come see if they were… people we know.” He glances over at Pidge meaningfully as he lets the stone cradle in her hand, she takes it and draped is back over her neck again, letting it thud on top of the softened material of her inside-out hoodie, which still fills me with marginal pleasure to see upon knowing the reason _why_ it is that way. _Thanks, Keith._

I glance over at him fondly, simply because I can; admiring the cut of his jaw and the set in his brow, the curl of his hair just overtop the popped white collar of his jacket, his _ugly_ jacket, I don’t stop looking even as Ryner speaks again in a wizened manner, “Yes, I just spoke with their friend. Their ship sustained significant damage during an altercation with a set of Galra drones in the area, we have offered our mechanic’s services in repairing the vessel.” I slowly pull my gaze away from Keith’s stoic expression to see Ryner turn and face the pair of women who stand with their broken ship, “You are more than welcome to stay in the meantime. Any who oppose the Galra are friends here.” 

“The Galra _Empire_.” Lance corrects. Ryner and both of the women turn to look at him with quizzical looks as he shrugs with his arms crossed over his chest, “Because not all the Galra are bad, you know. We wouldn’t have this awesome plan to take down Zarkon without the Marmorites. Plus, ya know.” He looks over at Keith with a knowing gaze and a cocked eyebrow, “I’ve got friends who are Galra. Err, at least, part Galra.” 

Keith blinks with rather surprised expression at him as Ryner and the two attendants with them face Keith with fresh eyes. 

Instantly I feel my hackles rise with protective energy crackling under my skin but before I can even act Shiro steps up with a set in his brow, regarding Ryner with a careful gaze, “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

My throat laxes upon seeing Shiro move to defend Keith, when I glance over at him I can see his arms are still crossed and his expression is completely unreadable and placid, a stone wall. Ryner regards Shiro with a gentle expression before they quickly shake their head, “No, not at all.” They turn and fix the same gaze on Lance as they continue, “Thank you for the correction, I will be sure to be more precise with my words in the future.” 

“Uh… no problem.” Lance mutters awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and offering them a sheepish smile. Internally I find my chest warming, I almost have to fight the urge to hug Lance right now I’m so pleased. _He’s been nothing but supportive, a source of stability, since we’ve learned Keith is Galra. Way better than me, at least. Better than anyone, actually. Which is shocking because he and Keith haven’t always been on best terms but… he called him his friend._

_Damn, look at that character growth._

Suddenly to my left I hear a soft click and a whine, like a charging battery, and when I turn around I see Phuong with the gun once strapped to her hip drawn, my heart stops in my chest as she barks with a malicious hiss in her breath, _“Bạn là Galra?!”_

I needn’t know what language she’s speaking to know exactly what she’s saying.

I act without thinking, I push myself between Phuong and Keith with a hand out towards her and my elbow pressed against Keith’s chest, I glare her down and snarl, “Shoot him I promise you that it’s the last thing you’ll ever do, bitch!” 

“W-whoa, Will! Phuong, easy!” Shiro holds his hands out as well like he’s taming a pair of raptors but Phuong doesn’t flinch, and now Amahle is giving Keith a similarly raking gaze, as if she’s picking apart his every piece, searching for a weakness, but she doesn’t move for her gun… yet. I feel Keith moving behind me and I quickly flicker my gaze back towards him to see his arms settle to his sides, his eyes flicker between the two women before they meet mine with an unreadable light, for the life of me I can’t tell what exactly it is that he’s thinking. 

Ryner steps up then. They glide forward with the grace of a tree spirit, standing directly in front of Phuong’s gun with a stunningly calm gaze - much to the alarm of the two Olkari who accompanied her, as they both immediately make whale-like noises of anxiety - and they speak no differently than they were before to us, their bifocal gaze even and still as a cliff before the pounding sea, “Need I remind you that the Paladins of Voltron are our allies. But more than that, they are the people that liberated my planet, liberated many planets before, and have become the catalyst that brings about the ending of the thousand year dictatorship that has brought this suffering upon our universe.” 

Internally, a small part of me that isn’t coursing with pounding adrenaline wonders if we should tell Ryner that we’ve freed, like, two planets from Galra control, but I recognize that now is _most certainly_ not the time, not with Keith being under direct threat. I keep my forearm firmly pressed to his chest, just as he recedes back from it, shying like a tense horse.

Phuong hesitates, I can see their eyes flicker from Ryner then to the two attendants beside them, then to each of us individually and I wonder if she seriously thinks she could take us all down in this moment, in a crowded hanger; it doesn’t matter who she is or what the purpose was, shooting the _Olkari leader_ **_and_ ** _a Paladin of Voltron_ will no doubt rain down complete annihilation upon her. That fills me with marginal relief, but I won’t feel at all settled until she is _leagues_ away from Keith. 

“And let me make this perfectly clear to you.” Ryner continues with the same gentle tone, as if speaking to a dignitary or a parent, “If you harm any of the Paladins, you will be declaring yourself an enemy to all but Zarkon himself. Voltron is our _only hope_ of ending his reign, and regardless of your personal feelings, it would be most wise of you to rethink your current actions.” They tilt their head slowly downward, fixing Phuong with a hard, pinning stare that even has me quaking, “Do you understand?”

Phuong takes a long moment, staring first at Ryner then at Keith, every single muscle in my body is tense and ready to spring at the first sign of movement but slowly they twist their wrist and hold their hands up in surrender, the nozzle of their gun pointed to the ceiling. 

“Thank you.” Ryner says politely, before holding out their hand towards her reverently, as if she’s offering it to a child, “Your weapon, please.” 

Phuong sets her jaw and stares at Ryner’s hand, I can see the hesitation in her gaze as she slowly reaches out and sets the gun in their hand. Wordlessly they hand it off to one of their attendants, and after a moment they continue with a curt tone, “You are still welcome to remain in the city, but in light of your recent actions I find it within reason to detain all of you and your companion’s weapons. You may have them when your ship is repaired.” I can see Amahle glaring harsh daggers at Phuong as Ryner speaks without pause, “And I will be having my people watching your movements to ensure the safety of the Paladins. If these conditions are not ideal for you, then the alternative is total arrest for threat of violence on Olkari soil.”

I’m filled with almost instantaneous relief, and now all I wanna do is give _Ryner_ a massive hug, I find my forearm protectively pressed to Keith’s chest slowly drop. _Wow, we all really came out here to defend Keith today, huh?_

With the pair of women’s silence as they merely exchange meaningful glances with one another, Ryner tilts their head to their two Olkari fellows who accompanied them and speaks decisively, “Please de-arm and escort our guests to their living conditions, if you please, and inform the guard of my decision.” The pair of Olkari immediately not with a humming sound like the buzz of bees times ten, and wordlessly they hold out their hands to the side, gesturing for the women to take leave. Amahle lets out a sigh and meets our gazes for a moment before giving us a slight wave, _“Uxolo ngalokho. Bekumnandi ukukuhlangana nawe!”_

“Yeah, thanks, no problem.” Pidge grumbles with her arms crossed as Phuong shoots one last glare over her shoulder as they’re escorted out, only when they’re out of sight do I really breathe again. I look back at Keith behind me and his gaze meets mine immediately, his visage is completely placid, like a sheet of rock, and his eyes glint like tinted steel in the light of the midway risen sun streaming into the open walled hanger.

I reach out and cup his cheek with a relieved exhale, looking at him seriously, “You okay?” 

Keith huffs indignantly and snaps, “I’m fine.” He grabs my hand to push it away but stops at the last second, instead touching my wrist with a hesitating force beneath his fingers, his gaze lingering on my receding expression. He gently squeezes my wrist at my pulse point, a reaffirmation before he pulls my hand away in a much more tender manner, relieving the pile of salt in the back of my throat. 

 _“Ugh,_ can’t you be gay out of my line of sight?” Pidge complains loudly, I shoot her a glare over my shoulder only to see her flashing me a shit eating grin, but her eyes glint in relief; no doubt the tension of the sudden showdown has her pulling a Lance, AKA diffusing a situation with humor as a distraction. 

“Hey, it could be worse, I could’ve done a whole WWII dipping thing.” I flash her with a coy smile before glancing over at Keith and winking playfully. He flushes almost immediately, his gaze sliding off to the side as he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. 

Ryner turns to us from where they stood as still as an ancient oak, pulling our gazes to them as they bow their heads, “I apologize on their behalf. Many have experienced incredible pain at the hands of the Galra Empire, and may be prone to confuse enemy from friend. But even so, this does not excuse their actions.” 

“It’s alright, Ryner.” Shiro responds with a soft tone, his gaze grows soft as he regards them with a relieved lax in his upright shoulders, “Thank you for your help. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t intervened.” 

“I’m sure it would’ve been fine.” They assure him with an offhanded gesture, “It was just quicker this way.” They look over our shoulders with a fond expression, a slight smile gracing their narrow features, “Fortunately, their companion, the pilot who came to speak to me, is a much more reasonable and amiable person. I am sure that he will be more than willing to accommodate for his companions.”

“Man, the suspension is _killing_ me, we gotta meet this guy!” Hunk proclaims with a clench of his fist, furrowing his eyebrows as he keeps his gaze fixed on Ryner, “Do you know where he is? We think he’s from the same Galaxy Garrison that we are, so we might actually uh… you know, know him personally.” 

“Then you are in luck,” Ryner replies with a soft smile, looking beyond and behind us with a meaningful expression, immediately we all turn around and look. 

From this angle I’m at the back, and beyond Hunk and Shiro I can’t see because they’re _fucking over six feet,_ but I hear the English clearly, growing distinct as the voice grows closer. 

“-cool stuff, I gotta say. You know I thought the whole _‘Olkari can manipulate metal like magic’_ thing was a total hoax, but turns out that wasn’t even a slight exaggeration, that was wicked awesome. I’m sure that with your help we’ll get our bird flying in no time.” 

I find my muscles slowly freezing as recognition flickers across my thoughts. 

_I know that voice._

_I know that voice from anywhere._

A man with blond hair comes into view, I can see him from where I’ve moved to Hunk’s right, speaking with an Olkari. A man wearing the same flight suit as the two women who were here before, with blond hair cut short on the top, a man with ice blue eyes that flicker upwards to our collective and my blood freezes in my veins. 

_This is impossible._

_No, this isn’t possible. I’ve got to be dreaming. This can’t be real._

“Yo, _what_ is _that?”_ Lance suddenly proclaims, his eyes flying wide as he approaches him with an amicable, beaming grin, _“Damien?!_ _You’re_ the pilot?” 

_No._

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

Damien looks up at Lance with a raised eyebrow before he lets out a laugh, “Oh shit, you’re a Garrison guy! I know you, fuck, uh… Luke, or something, right? You were a cargo pilot.” 

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

Lance flushes a bit and rubs the back of his neck, “I’m Lance. Well actually I got upgraded to fighter class, but then duty called and now I’m actually a Paladin of Voltron, so you know, _further upgrades_.” 

Damien lets out a low whistle as his gaze goes beyond him, “I heard that the pilots for the most powerful weapon in the universe were humans, but I didn’t think you’d be Garrison boys. Bet that’s got the admin’s panties all up in a twist.” 

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

His gaze zones in on Shiro, full of ice and snow as he grows rigid, his shoulders going back in a military pose, “Officer Shiro! … You’re alive!” 

Shiro nods a little with a slightly abashed smile, crossing his arms as he regards the cadet, “Yes, I am. Me and my team got captured by the Galra while we were on Kerberos.”

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

“So was mine.” Damien answers briskly before his jaw tightens, he moves on without pause as his gaze flickers to Shiro’s left, he cocks an eyebrow, “Wow, a buncha familiar faces today, you kinda look like Matt. Related?” 

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

Pidge starts, looking at Damien with starry eyes and a straight spine, “You know my brother?”

Damien nods with his hands perching on his hips, “Yeah, we hung out a bit back at the Garrison, as much as you could in separate divisions, you know, he wasn’t in my squadron… but I knew him. Cool guy. Talked a lot about his genius sister.” He cocks an eyebrow with a flash of pearly teeth, “Suppose that’s you?”

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

Pidge beams, genuine light shining from every facet of her visage as she nods before she presses him further, her expression growing deadly serious, “Have you seen him? Since you’ve been out here?”

Damien shook his head simply, “No. I assumed everyone on the Kerberos mission was dead. But seeing as that’s not the case…” He juts a thumb at Shiro, “I can only imagine he’s out there somewhere, still kicking. It’s hard to keep a Holt down, I hear.” 

Pidge smirks broadly, “Damn right.”

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

Damien’s gaze slides further along and he tilts his head to the side as he narrows his gaze, “Well, hey there, broody boy. Long time no see.” Every muscle in my body is so tense I could get graced by a fly and jump into the atmosphere.

Lance raises an eyebrow incredulously as he looks between an expressionless, crossed armed Keith and a relaxed Damien with a cry of surprise, “You two know each other?”

_This can’t be happening._

_This isn’t real._

_This can’t be real._

“Oh yeah. This fucker kept taking my number one spot on the fighter pilot roster.” Damien replies simply with a jutting chin in his direction, a smirk playing his lips as his eyes alight with glacial fire, “Up until you dropped out, though. Shame. But I’m not complaining, ‘cause I finally got that first place bid.” 

“Congratulations.” Keith replies evenly and without any change in expression or demeanor, simply regarding him with a lazy blinking gaze like a resting cat in the shadows of the treetops. 

The sheet of a glacier falls to me and my fight, flight, or freeze response is instantly triggered, my heart lodges in my throat as the ice envelopes me fully and chooses _freeze_ for me. Damien’s mouth drops, if he were holding something in his hands he would’ve dropped it as he lets out a hard breath. “Oh my _God._ By all that’s- _Will?_ ” 

I feel like I just got dragged, naked and whipped, through the streets to be propped on a pedestal before the entire population of the hanger as the others turn to me with confused expressions, the situation grows frighteningly real and I realize exactly where I am, exactly what’s happening. 

_This is happening._

_This is real._

_This is absolutely real._

Damien comes rushing towards me and I cow, my muscles scream to move, to run, but I merely look on with petrified silence as Damien suddenly swoops in and wraps his arms tightly around me in a bone crushing hug that rivals even Hunk’s, before I can even blink, breathe, think, exist, he kisses me and I’m so strongly overwhelmed with the taste of green apples that my legs almost give out and my head immediately starts pounding. 

Before I know it he’s cupping my face in his hands, smiling so brightly it’s like sunshine on a clear day as he laughs incredulously, “Jesus _Christ_ , you’re literally the _last person_ I thought would be up here. What happened to _“fuck going to space,”_ huh? What the _fuck?_ ” 

“Um…” I squeeze my eyes shut when I hear Lance’s confused voice. I want to dig myself a hole right here in the hanger and lie in it, scoop the dirt back on top and bury myself alive to escape but I can’t, I’m painfully aware of every single second of every single moment, his hands cupping my face, his taste on my lips, Lance’s awkward lilting tone, “... You two know each other?”

“Fuck yeah, of course we do.” Damien wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, I can hear him smirking at the others as I open my eyes and stare at nothing, purposefully unfocusing my eyes as hard as I can so I can’t see their faces, so I can’t their expressions, _this is happening, this is real, this is absolutely real._

He ruffles my hair briefly before he turns to the group with a wild grin, “He’s my boyfriend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles* prepare to suffer, sluts.  
> The title is a pun and an indicator. :)  
> Song from the beginning is Into the West by Annie Lennox (seen before in the White Paladin chapter 17)  
> The phrase Will said is NOT actually jibberish, it's elvish! It means "in the end it's a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass" Which is a bit from the Lord of the Rings, just like the song. His mom would say it to him after singing him to sleep and his subconscious remembers :')


	18. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the surprise visit from the last person that Will thought he would ever see again, his entire world shifts upside down, everything changes; his relationship with the team, with his lion, with himself, nothing is safe from the grasp of the past.   
> Especially when old habits die hard, and people change less than you expect them to. And when they do change, sometimes it's not for the better.  
> \---  
> **SEVERE CONTENT WARNING PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS: emotionally and sexually abusive elements and actions throughout the chapter, which will continue for the next two, perhaps three chapters as well. If this is something that can be triggering for you, I STRONGLY advise you to read only what you are comfortable with. Because of the varying nature of these elements I will be doing a rating system chapter to chapter on the intensity, 1 being relatively mild and 5 being extremely explicit and intense; this chapter I'd rate to be a 3/5, pushing close to 4/5 due to the sexual abuse**

“Oh!” Lance laughs in such an uncomfortably forced manner that it makes the wild borderline suicidal thoughts plowing through my consciousness all the more feral as he continues, “Well that’s uh… Didn’t know that!”

Damien cocks an eyebrow at that and runs a hand through my hair, I have to fight the urge to pull away, “Really? That’s kinda surprising.” 

I want to scream. I want to run, I want to hide, I want to smash my head against the closest wall and hope it knocks me out, I want to  _ get him to stop touching me  _ but I can’t find it in me to even blink. See. I’m looking at what’s going on around me from a secondary perspective and that’s almost just as terrifying because I can’t tell how the others are  _ truly  _ feeling. All I can feel is the tangible discomfort as they all recognize how the situation we find ourselves in has changed. 

“Okay, so wow, a buncha Garrison guys and a random civilian are piloting Voltron, huh?” Damien glances over at me offhandedly, he lets his arm drop from around my shoulders much to my unending relief but he stays standing right next to me, still slightly touching, he would feel it if I pulled away. “Is that that huge, fancy, white ship that’s docked on the other side of the city?”

Shiro speaks in a completely normal manner, nothing in his expression or demeanor has changed since Damien approached and now is no different, “That’s the Castle. It’s the Altean ship that was specifically build to house the Voltron lions.”

“Oh damn.” Damien blinks, settling one of his hands on his waist and the other graces the small of my back and I can’t help but flinch, no one seems to notice as he continues in a pensive drawl, “I’d love to see it! It looks like a downright fancy piece of machinery that I’d love to get into the guts of.” Damien looks over at me and as I cautiously meet his gaze he winks. An icy fist wraps around my throat and I can’t find anything to say or do in response besides stare. 

_ I thought you were dead. _

_ You’re supposed to be dead.  _

“Well, I’m sure we can give you a tour… unless you have other duties to attend to.” Shiro’s gaze flickers to mine and it makes the fist clench tighter until I can barely breathe. I can’t tell how he’s feeling, I can’t see any emotion besides confusion and searching, like he’s looking at me for the first time, and that suckerpunches the breath out of me like nothing else. It’s his gaze that pulls me out of my head, and I find myself looking to the others for some sort of understanding of how they’re feeling, what they’re seeing. Hunk looks shy, he taps his fingertips together with a side eye look at the others around him before they look at Damien and I look away before we can lock eyes. Lance was looking around with swivels of his head, but now he’s staring at his shoes and appearing downright uncomfortable, he’s playing with his hoodie strings and keeps rolling and unrolling the sleeves in methodical patterns. It’s then when I remember Keith that my gaze sharpens and I look around but as I look from face to face to face I realize that he’s nowhere to be found. 

Keith is gone. 

My throat constricts like a viper strangling me and I suddenly feel the hot sting of salty tears beginning to form in the back of my throat.  _ But what else is he supposed to do? Just stand there when a guy from the Garrison, someone he once knew, suddenly shows up and kisses me, someone he’s been fucking for the past two days, and calling me his boyfriend…  _

_ What have I done? I knew this couldn’t have ended well, how could I have been so stupid? I can’t even begin to imagine what he must be thinking, he must feel so betrayed and disgusted that I’d cheated, I’m a cheater…  _

_ But how was I supposed to know Damien was alive? I went to his funeral, he was declared, for all intents and purposes, dead. Maybe he is disgusted even more so, thinking about how I slept with others after Damien, before him, the double whammy of the amount of times I’d now been cheating on Damien without knowing it- _

Pidge steps up and snaps her fingers to the right, from hence we came and yanking me violently from my spiraling thoughts, “Yeah, you should definitely come to the Castle. You’ve gotta know about the different rebel groups around, right?”

Damien shrugs nonchalantly with a lazy smirk, “I know enough of them to figure out who’s a friend, yeah.” 

Pidge perks up almost immediately and then looks over at Shiro with a pleading gaze; in the recesses of my mind that isn’t covered in frost I realize she wants to see if Damien can help her figure out who was the rebel group that broke Matt free. That’s when I realize just how self absorbed I’m being.  _ Okay, so what if the mask’s torn off and I’m revealed to be a cheating moron? Why am I freaking out about how the others are perceiving me with Damien back when we’re at war? What’s it matter how I’m scared out of my mind when he has valuable information, probably about Zarkon’s trade and supply routes and about other rebel groups, which we simply don’t and can’t know without his help?  _

Even as I try to logic myself out of my crowded headspace I find myself in Damien’s hand keeps me locked in, now tucking itself into my back pocket; I want to pull away  _ so. Much.  _

_ … Maybe I can. Maybe he’s different, now. Hell, he’s been in space for six months at least, fighting an intergalactic war after being captured by the Galra, a species I know he didn’t know existed before then, just like me and the rest of us… Shiro changed, too, after he got freed by Ulaz. He changed a lot more physically than Damien has… but nonetheless maybe that means he’s… Less possessive. And won’t get mad at me for wanting personal space. Maybe he’s different. _

So, tentatively, I attempt to step away and pull myself away from his grasp but before I can move his fingers hook on one of my belt loops and holds me firmly close, it’s such a small gesture that I doubt the others even noticed, especially with Damien continuing to look on without a change in expression as Shiro and Pidge stare one another down with some internal debate going on between their gazes that I can’t glean meaning from. But the message is received; I swallow on the ice cube in my throat and stay put, looking around at the four faces of my friends who are looking everywhere but at me. 

_ Keith left.  _

_ No, shut up, get over yourself, of course he did, that’s the only proper response. But I have to find him later. I have got to explain myself, tell him that I don’t want this, I don’t want to be with Damien, this wasn’t supposed to be a factor- _

“We have some intel of a rebel group breaking Matt out of a Galra prison.” Shiro cuts in, his quicksilver gaze never leaving Damien’s, “If you could help us identify them, or at least where they may be operating from, that would be a great help in finding him.”

Damien nods professionally, “Of course. I don’t know how much help I will be, but if I’ve got anything I’ll happily tell you.” He looks over at me and this time I don’t meet his gaze, I’m locked square on the floor opposite of the room and I don’t think I could move my eyes if I wanted to, they’re frozen, ice blocked solid. “Also sounds like a great opportunity to catch up with my  _ fellow Earthlings.” _ He says with a teasing, lilted grin, he kisses my temple and I practically wince, before I beat myself stupid over doing so. 

_ Why am I acting so victimized? What the fuck is wrong with me, acting so selfishly, look at it from his point of view. We were close back on Earth, he came and saw me as often as he physically could while he was at the Garrison, then he got captured by the Galra and God knows what happened to him from then on out. But he’s been alone in space, with those two women who don’t speak English and a bunch of aliens, and now his loving boyfriend is here when he thought that he would be the last person he’d see. That I would be the last person he thought to show up on an alien planet, piloting the most powerful weapon in the universe. It must look like a walking miracle to him.  _

_ He doesn’t know about the revelations I had after he was gone, realizing just how toxic he was - no, our relationship was, not necessarily him - … I’d taken the coward’s approach and said nothing. So of course he thinks we’re still together, of course he’s still physically affectionate, why wouldn’t we be when he kissed me goodbye before he headed off for Kerberos? _

_ But I thought he was dead. He has to recognize that this is beyond a shock for me even despite those realizations. This… I’m not ready to be alone with him. I don’t know how he’s changed, if its for the worse or for the better, and I’m scared to find out. But why am I so scared? That makes no sense, he’s my boyfriend - No, he  _ **_was_ ** _ my boyfriend. I was allowed to move on, I thought he was dead, I’m allowed to move on, I’m allowed to have feelings for someone else, stronger feelings that aren’t filled with apprehension…  _

“Actually, if I may,” The rest of us start when Ryner speaks. They stand hovering with a polite fold of their hands over their lap, their gaze flickers across my form only briefly before they turn to Shiro, “Please, don’t change your day’s schedule on my account, but I would like to borrow the White Paladin. I have an idea on how to assist in the formation of the quintessence enhancer.”

Oh.  _ Fuck. That’s right, I was supposed to do that today. God, how can I be so caught up in my head at a time like this, we’re at war, I have to do my part, God I am so fucking selfish, I’ve gotta do the one thing that only I can do-  _

Shiro raises an eyebrow at Ryner before he glances over at me briefly, then at Damien, my stomach flips, he returns his gaze to Ryner, “Of course. We need it made as soon as possible to get the teludav finished.”

Damien blinks in surprise before he glances over at me with a raised eyebrow, “Oh, is that you?” He smirks in a broad manner and cups my chin with a soft coo, “Aww, look at you! Fancy schmancy White Paladin, doing all kinds of fancy techie stuff. Your parents have gotta be turning over in their beds over that.” I flush as he taps my jaw with his index finger, flashing me a charming wink, “Go on, then, we can catch up later. Okay?” 

I meet his expectant gaze for a long bout of hesitation before I can finally open my mouth to croak, “... Okay.” 

“Great.” He releases me then and with the permission granted I take a shaking step back away from him, towards Ryner. The others flicker their gazes between me and Damien and it makes my chest ache and ache and ache, it  _ hurts,  _ who knows what they must be thinking, about me, about my relationship, and  _ God, what kind of stuff is Damien going to tell them about me when I’m gone…  _

“After you.” Ryner draws my gaze to them as they hold out their arm to the side, leading out of the hanger. I swallow thick on the cold water in the back of my throat and follow just after them. 

“So, paladin, it appears that you did end up finding someone that you knew back from Earth.” Ryner asks rhetorically in a polite manner as we leave, the sea of aliens in the area immediately part before them so we move largely undeterred. Idly it makes me marvel at the kind of respect Ryner has garnered to have such a reaction from their people. Then I realize she spoke to me. 

“O-Oh. Yeah.” I clear my throat, shoving my shaking hands into my pockets to force them into recovery as I try and speak in a  _ normal  _ manner,  _ just act normal, there is nothing wrong here.  _ “Err, my name is Will, by the way.”

Ryner turns towards me with a high raise of their jaw, “Is that what you wish for me to call you?”

I bite my lip and shrug a bit, “I mean, it’s really whatever your comfortable with. Just wanted to give you the option.”

“Alright… Will.” Ryner’s posture is as straight as an arrow and the way that they walk is more like an even glide, their strides are so long and their garments don’t so much as ruffle with it, I find it rather difficult to keep up with them. 

“So, you had an idea about the quintessence enhancer?” I ask after a moment, biting my nails into the palm of my hand to keep myself in the moment, present,  _ not  _ thinking about anything but the task I need to do because that’s all that  _ matters,  _ not this stupid amount of fear in the back of my throat that’s baseless with absolutely no meaning-

“Truthfully, I don’t quite know how to assist you. I am unsure how this transfiguration you perform works.” Ryner responds in an even tone, it makes me think more and more that they have the same methodical manner of speaking as Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings.

“... Okay. Then what did you drag me away for?” I ask after a moment, regarding them with furrowed eyebrows. 

Ryner steps aboard one of the many platform transporters littering the edges of the rooftop, I climb in after them. There’s an Olkari guiding the vehicle, they give Ryner a polite nod as they take off without being given directions. “When you and your fellow paladins were battling the cube that the former King Lubos had crafted for the Galra, Pidge had a moment where she crashed her lion and was unable to get her back online.” Ryner rests their hands on the railings that encompass the transporter, I take up position beside them and watch them with a curious gaze as they continue to speak while regarding the city horizon, “You see, the Olkari have a unique ability to configure matter through binary and nonbinary coded signals through our hands. This is how we are able to craft items without the interfacing crowns that you used when you arrived at our armory.” 

I blink with a slight nod, recalling the headpieces that they are describing, the olive light emitting from within, the spark beneath your skin while you wore it. “It was with this ability I was able to communicate with Pidge and the Green Lion. It was an attempt to guide her to deepen their connection and unlock the inner power stores the Green Lion has in her heart to return them to the fight.” Ryner tilts their head to the side with a pensive expression, their bifocal, green and lilac gaze focusing on me as their hands remain on the railing, “This connection gave me a unique understanding of Pidge’s mind, and that of the Green Lion’s. It was how I was able to contact you through your helmet communicators once we had retaken the city without an opened channel.”

_ “Oh.”  _ I murmur with wide eyes, “I  _ was  _ wondering how you did that.” 

“Indeed.” Ryner responds evenly, their gaze never leaving mine as they continue in a placid tone, “When I connected with Pidge within the Green Lion, I was able to briefly come in contact with their… quintessence, I suppose it was, and I felt her fear as if it were my own. Not quite terror, but it was beyond that… a fear of failure. I guided her beyond that fear, and reminded her-”

“-That we’re all made of the same cosmic dust.” I finish for them, looking at them with a slight smirk as they blink in surprise, “That really stuck with Pidge. She told me about it afterwards.”

Ryner smiles softly at me as we glide over the city, “I am glad to hear it.” It’s well into the afternoon now, the sun is high in the sky and it beats down on the back of my neck as I regard the skyline of the city, like broken shards of malachite reaching towards the skies. 

“The reason why I’m telling you this is because it was through that connecting moment that I have been able to learn better your species’ mannerisms.” Ryner continues, drawing my gaze back to them only briefly as their bifocal eyes flicker from building to building before I follow them, examining the sides and the architectural features, “When the other human came, what I saw from you was the closest thing I’ve seen to fear from any of the paladins since that moment I connected with Pidge and her lion.” 

I choke on my tongue and tense up so hard that my knuckles turn white where I clutch the railing. I look over at Ryner with wide eyes and see them looking back at me with a soft expression that I don’t quite understand, not pitying, but rather like they’re looking at a long lost friend in a familial manner. “I don’t know what human codes of conduct are for physical touch and intimacy among yourselves, what is acceptable and what isn’t depending on your relationships but based on what I witnessed… it looked to me that the best scenario was to remove you from the situation. Because Damien’s presence made you afraid.” 

My immediate reaction is to protest.  _ No, I’m not afraid of Damien, he’s my boyfriend, why would I be afraid of Damien? That’s ridiculous, don’t be stupid -  _ But then something bitter, like ginger, settles on my tongue and leaves me feeling suddenly cold,  _ very  _ cold.  _ I looked afraid? So obviously afraid that an alien from another species all together thought that I needed to be ‘removed from the situation’? If Ryner noticed, the others had to have noticed,  _ **_Damien_ ** _ had to have noticed.  _

This sudden realization makes the terror in my throat climb to a new octave, but I manage to keep it wrestled down by sheer force of will and spite.  _ I need to ease their worries. I can’t have people worrying about me over something that doesn’t need to be worried about.  _ “No, it’s… it’s fine.” I clear my throat, digging my right fingernails into the scar on my palm to pull me as physically hard to the earth as I can manage before I’m able to speak like a normal human being, “I just uh… He was my boyfriend, back on Earth. He went up in space and disappeared, we assumed he had died. But it turns out he was just captured by the Galra. And I didn’t know…” My voice hitches as table salt clogs my throat.  _ I didn’t know he would be here. I didn’t know that he would show up and kiss me and hug me in front of everyone just a day after everyone knew about Keith and I being a thing. I didn’t know he was still alive, that I had been cheating on him inadvertently all this time, spitting on his memory because of the monster I had turned him into was the only Damien I cared to see…  _

“... Of course, I could always be mistaken.” Ryner’s voice is soothing, like aloe vera on a burn, “Nonetheless… whatever emotion it was that you exuded, I felt it best to allow you space to come to terms with it.” Ryner’s dual colored gaze rests on my expression that feels about two seconds away from crackling like stone beneath a pounding waterfall as they murmur softly, “I apologize if I overstepped my bounds.” 

At first I’m not sure how exactly I feel. Something caught between fear and confusion and just complete mayhem. But as I look into their eyes, the undeniable warmth and caution and  _ peace _ , these feelings change into gratitude. I swallow on my tongue and clear my throat, “No, don’t apologize. It’s okay… You uh… you may be right about needing a little bit of space.” 

_ May  _ be right.  _ No, you definitely are, Ryner, I need to be on the opposite side of the  _ **_planet_ ** _ as Damien, but I can’t run away. And I can’t hide forever. But I don’t want the others to know that I want to do those things, run and hide. They already know Damien, probably knew him better than they know me, or at least knew him longer if they were all at the Garrison… Even if I were to say ‘I’m scared of Damien’ that would invoke questions. ‘But why? He’s such a nice guy! And he’s willing to help us out in finding the rebel group that grabbed Matt Holt, you aren’t seriously gonna let your feelings compromise Pidge’s chance of finding her family, are you?’  _

_ … God, what am I gonna say to Keith? _

I don’t get the chance to truly dwell on this horrifying thought as the platform arrives to what I recognize as the lab where I hung out for the majority of the day prior, trying to make the quintessence enhancer. The gate of the transporter opens and Ryner gestures to the ramp leading into the building, giving me one last meaningful look, “If you require any assistance, Princess Allura, Coran, and I are available through the communicator in the holographic panel of the main room. We will be at the construction site in the blueprinting room,”

“... Okay.” I step off the transporter onto the ramp, I look back up at them after a moment and give Ryner a slight but still appreciative smile, “Oh, and uh… Thanks, Ryner. I appreciate your uh… help.” 

Ryner nods respectfully to me, “Anything for the Paladins of Voltron.” Without another word Ryner turns to the other Olkari in the transporter and they launch, heading towards the construction site and out of my line of sight behind the building, leaving me alone. 

I turn and trudge into the lab. No one is within, just the inactive holographic panel, it looks just as I left it yesterday evening. I tap on its surface to wake it up and as it does the three dimensional blueprint pops up, I recognize the diamond shapes of the helical springs up to the top and the bottom intimately after staring at them for who knows how long. I grab my lion’s stone in the palm of my hand but it’s difficult for some reason, it feels like there’s a tremor in the floor. I look down at my hands with furrowed eyebrows, and that’s when i realize that the trembling isn’t from the floor; my hands are shaking so hard I feel like my vision is doubled, and that’s when it all hits me like a sledgehammer against the wall. 

_ Damien is alive.  _

_ Damien is alive, he is here, and he is  _ **_alive_ ** _ , and he kissed me and made everyone uncomfortable and I made Keith  _ **_run away-_ **

I feel my knees buckle and I hit the floor, I have to lean my head against the metal surface of the desk that holds up the holographic panel and brace my shaking hands on the metal surface, my breath starts to immediately come in rapid sobs as the seawater that had been bubbling in the back of my throat suddenly bursts forward. I have to bury my face in my hands to try and suppress the sounds and wipe away the tears but they don’t accomplish either, I just sit there, crying, hyperventilating, my thoughts crashing like monkeys smashing pots onto glass walls incoherently but enough that some distinct words come through,  _ alive, scared, who knows, different, what do they think of me? Cheater, idiot. _

I can’t calm down for a long while. I simply hold myself upright against the metal, half hidden by the holographic panel and sobbing like a stupid kid until I’m able to breathe again. Only then do I stretch my thoughts into rationalized, straightened lines made with a business card.  _ Stop. Stop, you’re being so dramatic, stop it. There’s nothing to be worried about. You’re getting all worked up for nothing. You’re just guilt ridden because he’s back after you assumed he died and you’d already moved on to someone else. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.  _

_ You have a job to do. You can’t sit here and cry all day, we’re at war, and I have yet to do my part. Get your stupid head out of your stupid ass and do your fucking job, while you’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself the world is at peril and you have a chance to stop it. Get up. Get  _ **_up._ **

I wipe my eyes and take another shaking breath, grabbing the edge of the holographic panel and pulling myself upright with trembling hands. I stand there and look at the quintessence enhancer, taking slow, deliberate breaths for a long time to wrangle my emotions together, pile them up into a neat stack, put them in a box labeled  _ ‘Not now, not ever’  _ before throwing that motherfucker as far as possible into the deep recesses of my brain. 

I take another steadying breath and it sounds normal, fully in, fully out, no hitches or breaks.  _ Okay.  _ I grab my stone from around my neck again and stare down the quintessence enhancer. 

_ Do your fucking job.  _

… 

I don’t know how much time past as I stand there, staring, glaring, trying to get the stone to work and to form the enhancer but I made just as much progress as yesterday, except this time I feel progressively more and more frustrated that I can’t seem to  _ fucking get it.  _ I end up with my back to the door, my palms planted on the holographic panel, alternating between glaring down at the stone hanging around my neck and that  _ stupid  _ enhancer.  _ I don’t get it. What the fuck am I doing wrong? What did I do that made it happen the first time? Do I actually need to start chanting in Latin because I swear- _

The door behind me opens, before I can turn around a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist and lips that smell like green apples press against the side of my neck, “Found you!” 

I jump so hard that I almost would’ve hit Damien if he didn’t have his shoulders behind my elbows to block their backward movement, instantly the anxieties that I had forced down to a low simmer boil right back up again and freeze in my blood, I’m so suddenly cold it’s like I got dunked in an icy river and then thrown into an industrial freezer. Damien grabs my wrists and turns me around to face him and I stare up at him with wide eyes as he cups my face in his hands, his sky blue eyes are warm and inviting and soft as he murmurs, “Alone at last. God, I’m so  _ fucking happy  _ to see you.” He closes in and kisses me and I tense up, inadvertently I pull backwards but he holds me still with his hands grabbing my lower back. I set my jaw as his lips move against mine and I wish I could find some sliver of courage in me to put a hand up against his mouth to stop him, to talk, to do  _ something, anything,  _ but as I do try and part my lips to speak he just presses closer and his kiss deepens and I definitely can’t escape anymore, not with his hands on my back and my body pressed against the panel. 

Finally he breaks away and I struggle to breathe, my entire body feels like it’s on vibrate as Damien’s hands grab my shoulders. I meet his searching expression as his glacier colored eyes flicker between mine, his thumbs gently caress the bone of my shoulder, “Hey, angel, what’s wrong? You haven’t said… anything. Nothing.” 

I swallow as his hand cups my jaw again, pointing my face up towards his and my pulse stutters on my tongue.  _ Because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how I feel, nevertheless how I’m supposed to articulate it.  _ I open my mouth to speak and stammer like I just got pulled out of a sentient, murderous shower, “I-I thought you were dead.” I take a shallow breath as Damien’s eyebrows furrow, it takes me a moment for me to find any more words as I breathe through my mouth, “I went to your funeral and everything. You were dead.”

Damien shushes me with a gentle caress of his fingertips across my mouth before he closes in and kisses my cheek, then hugging me tightly to him while murmuring, “Shh, it’s okay, I’m here, now. I’m not dead. See?” He takes one of my trembling hands and presses it against his chest, holding my palm against his heart so I feel its beat beneath my frostbitten skin. “Geez, hands still cold as ice.” Damien curls his nose in a manner I’ve always found endearing as he pulls away enough to look at me again, holding both of his hands over mine pressed against his chest as he hums, “Guess somethings never change.” 

I swallow again before I find some coherency to ask the question at the forefront of my thoughts, “Where are the others? My team?”

Damien raises a lazy brow at me, “Shiro took ‘em to do some exercise or something on the training deck in the Castle after we looked at that video of Matt.” He answers helpfully, gently he touches his nose to mine in an affectionate manner as he continues, “They told me where I could find you, keep you company and help out as you do the… quint-whatever thingy.” I find my muscles tensing as Damien’s hands travel to my throat, hovering just above my collarbone with his fingertips flush against the skin as he hums in an alluring manner, “Don’t worry… they won’t come looking for you for a while yet.”

He gets closer and steals another kiss, my mouth is only aware of the cold intake of air and the taste of green apples before he cups my face in his hands again, “ _ ‘Your team’ _ told me all about how y’all ended up out here. They said you always had these dreams about your lion, or something, and that that’s what drew you out to the Garrison where they found that guy’s lion… what was his name… Lance’s.” I shiver as Damien’s fingertips drag along my neck, loosely they settle on the back to hold my head in his hands as he hums, “I gotta say, I was kinda shocked you hadn’t told me something that was apparently so…  _ interval _ .” 

Something about Damien’s tone digs into the deep recesses of my subconsciousness. I don’t know what it is, I recognize it from somewhere but I don’t quite know where, all I do know is that it fills me with apprehension; it feels like a trap. “I uh… I never told anyone about them.” I answer evenly, swallowing on the viscous ice caught in the roof of my mouth. 

Damien lets out a soft, slightly disappointed sigh as his fingertips draw through my hair, my skin screams with the contact but all I can do is meet his gaze as he tuts under his breath, “I thought we were close enough that you would’ve told me anything.” He lets his hands drop before he plants them on the panel behind me, I press as far onto it as I can but he crowds closer so that it does nothing but more effectively pin me to the surface. He tilts his head to the side with a raise in his brow and a genuine, light lilt of confusion in his tone, “But you’re the master of keeping things from people. Even from those you say you care about… aren’t you?”

Primal fear seizes my throat, I stammer without much thought, “W-What do you mean?”

Damien keeps his eyebrow raised at me with a slightly disbelieving smirk, “Seriously?” He touches his lips to my chin briefly like he’s reminding himself of my tangible presence before he stares directly into my soul, “Well for starters, they didn’t know about that time you snuck me into your friend’s play. Which led me to learn that you never even told them you were  _ the _ musical director at your school in the first place. Seems like an important part of your life that you didn’t care to mention. But  _ that’s  _ relatively benign compared to the fact that they didn’t know anything about me. They didn’t even know that you and I are  _ dating _ .” I swallow down pure fear as Damien shakes his head with another sigh of disappointment and hurt, “I talked about you damn near every day to the boys at the Garrison. Then, out here, once I got broke out of jail by the rebels, I told them all about my beautiful boyfriend back home, probably worried sick, waiting for me.” 

Cold seizes every facet of my being as I find it’s too difficult to meet his gaze, I let it drop between us as Damien continues with a slightly incredulous tone, “I was told that you paladins had to be thick as thieves to be able to form Voltron. I can’t really imagine how that’s the case considering all these secrets you’re keeping from them.”

I furrow my eyebrows and open my mouth to speak, hesitating only briefly when Damien cocks a brow at me in warning but I press on nonetheless, “It just… it just wasn’t relevant, that’s all. I wasn’t- I’m not hiding anything.” 

Damien tilts his head to the side as if he’s contemplating this answer before he scoffs, “Yeah, sure. You might be able to fool them, but I know you better than that.  _ I  _ know you better than anyone… and I can tell you’re all a tremble for more than just simple shock that I’m not dead.” 

Immediate terror seizes my chest like nothing else.  _ Did they tell him about my feelings for Keith? Did he figure it out on his own? If he did… Jesus Christ, I can’t even begin to imagine the ramifications of how he would feel if I actually cheated on him rather than the faux advances he perceived from others back on Earth. But maybe he’s different now. Maybe he’ll understand that I thought he was dead…  _

_ Better to just make sure he doesn’t find out anyway. Even if he doesn’t get mad, he’ll be hurt. And I’ve already hurt Keith by this mess… Ah, Keith...   _

I start in surprise as Damien leans in and kisses me again and this time when I flinch Damien grabs my throat to hold me steady. Immediately my body tenses, when he pulls away suddenly he gives me a narrow eyed look full of betrayal and hurt that seeds painful pricks in my heart. 

“I see how it is.” He releases me and I let out a shaking gasp before he replants his hands on the panel behind me, “... You think you’re better than me.” 

I blink at him with wide eyes and immediately shake my head as quick as I can but he stops the movement by grabbing my chin, holding me still as he murmurs in a hurting voice, like I’d stabbed him, “So what, you’re a Paladin of Voltron now and you think that makes you above me? That some  _ Garrison boy  _ is just too  _ low  _ for you?” 

“No, Damien, I-” I can’t even finish my sentence before his hand locks back on my throat and this time he squeezes, hitching my airways enough that my voice dies, I grab his wrist where he holds me to try and mitigate the pressure. My fight or flight triggers and I’m one more squeeze away from lashing out against my will and that _ terrifies  _ me, but what terrifies me more is the possible consequences I would face if I were to.

He touches his lips to my neck just beneath my ear and growls, “Well let me tell you something, Will. That’s all bullshit and lies. You’re my  _ boyfriend  _ first, and a  _ paladin  _ second.” 

He releases my throat and I take a heavy gasp to refill my lungs right as Damien’s lips return to hover over mine, I grit my teeth to steel my breath as he whispers in a dark drawl, “And I’m gonna make sure you remember that.” 

He presses forward suddenly and kisses me and I struggle on impulse, I barely get a hand on his chest to push him off before he roughly grabs my wrists, slamming my hands down on the holographic panel and holding them there. He bites my bottom lip hard as punishment and I whine; my entire body screams for me to push him away and run, fight him,  _ I don’t want this, I don’t want you on me, I don’t want you touching me, _ but then another part of me shakes at the very idea of what sort of repercussions I would receive if I were to try. My knuckles and wrists already ache a bit from the rough grab and now my lips feel like they’re getting bruised with rough kisses,  _ I can’t escape this. I’m stuck.  _

But I refuse to kiss him back. I can’t force myself to do that much, I can’t play along even if I can’t pull away, and my heart starts to pound when I realize that Damien can sense it. I taste nothing but ice and mint as Damien pushes his tongue into my mouth and I have to resist the immediate urge to bite him, though when I tense up and draw away a bit he grabs the back of my neck and holds me closer. 

I whimper and squeeze my eyes shut before his lips suddenly leave mine, I open my eyes to watch him stoop down. I blink and wonder if it’s over before Damien grabs my thigh and hoists me up, I let out a sharp cry of shock as he twists and sits me on the table by the wall, just out of sight of the door before he closes the distance again and this time his kisses are rougher, more demanding and his hands are roaming my sides, my thighs, and disgust mounts in my throat.  _ I’m alone, no one can find me here, he’s gonna take this as far as he wants to and there’s nothing I can do about it without getting lashback. I’ve already pissed him off enough to push him to this point that I’m terrified at what could happen if I kept fighting back now, but I don’t want to do this, I hate this taste of green apples, especially after lingering with the wonderful warmth of cinnamon and the gentler touches- I don’t want this, why can’t I just fight back, I need to fight back- _

Damien’s hand glides up my chest and I let out a soft whimper against his lips, which causes him to break into a smirk as he hums, “I love seeing you like this. All shaky and needy, you missed this, didn’t you?” He nips on my jawline and I start, grabbing the edge of the surface with white knuckles but he holds me still with his hands pushing down on my thighs, his wolfish grin breathes on my pulse, “Bet you missed someone taking control of you, haven’t you? … I missed it, too.” He sucks on my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut to try and distance myself from the feeling but then his teeth sink in and it violently rips my concentration, keeping me firmly in the present as he coos in juxtaposition with his nipping teeth, “I missed having someone willing to give themselves over to me. A panting little bitch to do with as I please.” 

I tense and flush all the way across my face and down my chest as his arms lock on my hips and he presses forward, spreading my legs until my knees are around his hips and I’m crashed so hard into the present that metallic fear strangles me entire being.  _ I need to get out of here, I need to escape, this can’t be happening, I don’t want to do this, I don’t- please, God, I don’t even care if someone walks in on seeing this, I just need something to happen to get me out of here-  _

Suddenly the entire building shakes and it knocks Damien and I awry, nearly sending him tumbling; the windows on the far wall explode in a blastwave of glass as a flash of white light erupts from outside. I quickly leap to my feet as a whole new fear clenches my being, looking outside the window I can see smoke beginning to rise from the bottom part of the building beneath our feet.  _ A bomb? Are the Galra here? What the fuck? _

“What the hell was that?” Damien’s eyes are wide as he immediately spots the smoke as well, without a second thought I reach out to the holographic panel and tap on the commands, searching for the com that Ryner said could contact them if I needed help,  _ well I fucking need help now-  _

“Ryner, come in!” I call as I hold down the button. Black, billowing smoke is starting to waft into the room through the broken panels of glass shards that now litter the viridian metal floor, as soon as I hear Ryner’s voice another explosion racks the building. The groan of metal beneath my feet rips through the air so loud that I didn’t actually hear what Ryner said, so I quickly talk to get the words out as fast as possible, “Someone’s attacking the labs, two explosions just went off!” 

“We gotta get out of here.” Damien grabs my waist before I can say much else right as a third  _ boom _ goes off, it sounds less like a bomb and more like the firing of a plasma ray, I can feel the building’s structure groaning from the impact. Damien holds me steady until the shaking passes before he grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me out, I quickly take off after him through the door and out onto the ramp as the building rumbles unsteadily.

We don’t stop running until we get to a larger platform higher up from the smoking building, whose integral structure has begun to buckle. Zig zagged, melted marks dig into the sides with smoking holes left behind, there’s a loud  _ pop  _ as a metal beam gives and the third floor collapses, the floor just below the top floor where Damien and I just were. 

Less than a minute later does a familiar voice shout behind me, “What the heck happened?!” 

I turn around with wide eyes to see the rest of the team running up, all with looks of mild surprise, they’d changed into their Voltron suits.

“I don’t know!” Damien replies with a set brow looking back at the building. It’s not on  _ fire,  _ per-ce, it looks more like a massive laser blasted the metal in wild arcs, an abstract painting of militant proportions. “One minute there was nothing, then suddenly…”

We all goes silent as a shadow rises from behind the building, backlit by the sun; for a moment all I can see are four thrusters burning at capacity until the form grows closer, and then I start when the familiar vessel, or rather face, lands directly in front of us.

The White Lion sits on her heels with her front paws between them, looking down at us with her golden eyes bright and alert and immediately I feel her presence swarm my being, worry, anxiety, a purr that racks through my blood and sends pulses of gentle comfort throughout my being like I’m being wrapped in a hug. 

“What in the  _ crow? _ ” Hunk swears with wide eyes looking up at the lion as she sits as still as a sentinel, her golden eyes slowly dim until she appears to be in a resting position before us but the feeling doesn’t abate, rather it grows stronger; I feel like I’m filled with it, dusted drags of the sensation shivering off of me in gentle waves like the mist of a waterfall.

“Uh, Will,” Pidge’s uncertain tone draws my gaze to her’s as she looks at me with furrowed eyebrows, “Why was your lion attacking?”

“Yeah! And why was it attacking the same building that  _ you _ were in?” Lance follows up with an accusatory raise in his eyebrows, his arms crossed over his chest but it’s not him that I really focus on, but the shadow just over his shoulder. Keith’s changed into his Voltron armor, just as everyone else had, and if he feels my gaze he doesn’t care to meet it, as it is his locked, hooded and held steady on the White Lion’s face above us.

Shiro frowns as he steps forward, I balk when I see him examining my form as he speaks, “The only time that our lions have ever moved at their own volition is when their pilot is in danger.”

“... In the Olkari development lab?” Hunk asks a tad incredulously, looking over at me first then at my lion second with an obvious expression of apprehension, “She hasn’t gone rogue, has she?  _ Please  _ tell me our lions haven’t decided to overthrow us!” 

“... Is it possible that whatever prompted this is linked to your interior systems?” Damien suddenly pipes up with a helpful tone, looking over at me with an innocent raise in his brow. Ice seizes my veins, I have to look away or fall prey to his freezing gaze. 

Pidge raises an eyebrow at him and crosses her arms over her chest, I notice that beneath her armor her flight suit is inside out, but this no longer gives me any form of satisfaction, rather it’s a cold reminder of what once was. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe it reacts to like… an increased heart rate, or something.” Damien offers helpfully, shrugging as his hands loosely fit into his pockets. 

“Increased heart rate?” Lance asks incredulously, looking over at me with a playful smirk that I simply can’t conceive as possible in my current headspace, “What, were you running laps to get the enhancer made?” Horror seizes my throat as I realize what’s happening, what Damien’s  _ implying, _ a second too late.  _ No. Oh hell no, please don’t, don’t you fucking dare-  _

Damien smirks knowingly and I can feel his gaze locked on my tensed shoulders, “No, but there are  _ other ways  _ someone’s heart rate can get-”

I snap without thinking with words of absolute iron.  _ “Shut up, Damien.”  _

The silence in the area is so tangible and uncomfortable that it rubs against my skin like a giant cat’s tongue. I look over at Damien after only a brief pause and balk when I see the lackadaisical raise in his brow, an expression of only relative surprise that to anyone else would look rather lazy, most certainly benign, but I  _ know  _ that look, I know it better than my own handwriting; that look means I fucked up, and I’m going to  _ pay for it _ later. Immediate fear latches onto my throat and I have to fight not to shake as Damien holds his hands up in surrender, “Geez, okay, sorry. Just a speculation.” 

I glance around only briefly at the others and to my better judgment I find my gaze hitching immediately on Keith. He’s not looking at me, I don’t think he’s looked at me since I stood between him and Phuong’s blaster, rather his gaze is locked on the ramp to his left, like he’s a panther tracking unseen prey. 

That hurts more than I thought it would. But not as much as an outright glare would, which I found myself anticipating. But I wish he’d at least look at me. He’s read my mind more than once based on how I’m acting and I know I can’t be acting normally right now, if he would just  _ look  _ at me  _ he would know that I don’t want this-  _

_ But why should he? It’s not his duty. It’s, frankly… not his problem. Not his fault that I can’t find the fucking courage to speak, to act, to do anything at all except feel pathetic and sorry for myself like some child- _

It’s been way too silent for way too long, the discomfort is moving beyond unsettling.

“Sorry, um…” I clear my throat uncomfortably, trying to settle the tremble in my hands as I turn to face the White Lion, unable to bear with the others’ presence any longer, “Sorry for the false alarm, guys... and for the wrecked building… I’ll just go put her back.” 

As I walk towards my lion she drops down to open her jaws to let me in, but before I can get any sense of relief a voice calls from behind me, “I’ll come. I  _ definitely  _ wanna see the inside of these things.” Damien proclaims excitedly, immediate fear snatches my attention and stalls my steps as I whirl around towards him. 

But he doesn’t get the chance to get much closer. All of a sudden I can feel my lion growling deep in my chest and without warning her particle barrier erects itself around her in a violent pulse, stopping Damien on his tracks just outside of it. The others look on with wide eyes as the light fades as suddenly as it appears, slowly trickling into a bare highlight before it disappears completely. 

“... That’s a neat trick.” Damien hums with a thoughtful noise at the back of his throat, he reaches out towards where the barrier once was and its white walls suddenly appear beneath his hand, blocking his entry like the invisible maze back at the Castle, but without the shocking effect. “So, no rides on the fancy, apparently sentient robo-cats?”

“That’s really weird.” Pidge says with a fascinated tone, approaching to stand next to Damien and closely examining his hand laid on the white netting of Silver’s barrier. “I’ve never seen any of our lions do that before.” 

“Yeah, looks like Will’s lion doesn’t like you very much.” Lance says with a joking lilt but it immediately sends spikes of fear into my gut, I look over at him with wide eyes and desperately try to give him the  _ what the fuck did you just say fucking backtrack on that  _ but he isn’t looking at me, he’s too busy smirking to himself for his witticism.

Damien raises an eyebrow at Silver and then over at me, I have to struggle not to feel like his gaze encases ice blocks around my ankles as he huffs, “How can a cat form its own opinion?” 

Hunk taps his fingertips together with a sheepish expression, “Maybe she doesn’t dislike  _ you _ , maybe she just doesn’t like being called a cat? Just a thought.” 

Damien glances over at him with a hard light crafted from lack of amusement before he locks his gaze back on mine, “Well, can’t you tell it to let me in or something?”

I look at him with wide eyes and get that same sense as before; this question is some sort of trap. “I don’t know. I don’t really control what she does when I’m not in the cockpit.” I answer simply with a helpless stretch of my hands, trying to sound as monotonous and impartial as possible so as not to allow any sort of implication that I am in control of this, or that I knew this would happen, because I fucking  _ didn’t  _ and I need to be sure he  _ knows  _ that so I won’t get punished even more later for pushing him out  _ and  _ talking out of turn.  _ Oh God, what am I gonna be in for- _

“We can talk about this after you put the White Lion back with the teludav.” Shiro states with a no nonsense tone, when I look over and meet his gaze I shiver at how…  _ raking  _ they are, I feel like he’s giving me a visual pat down as he stands with his arms crossed resolutely, “We need the lions to be melding their quintessence into it as much as possible to alleviate the strain the jump is gonna put on Allura.”

This puts a heavy stone deep in my stomach, I swallow on it as hard as I possible can.  _ A strain that I am supposed to be helping alleviate by making that quintessence enhancer, which I’m failing at, miserably.  _

But enough with that. Taking Shiro’s words as a dismissal I quickly turn on heel and head into my lion’s mouth, running away from the platform, the situation, Damien, the team’s searching gazes,  _ they’re no doubt wondering ‘geez what’s wrong with you’  _ or  _ ‘wow already getting freaky with your boyfriend less than ten hours since you were spooning with Keith _ - _ ’ _ The door behind me snaps shut as the White Lion’s essence entangles with mine, I close my eyes and take a settling breath to fight back the sudden tears that threaten to spill forth as I head up the stairs and then sink into the pilot’s seat at the front. 

I don’t think for a long moment, there’s lots of white noise in my head but no distinct words yet as Silver and I take off into the sky and slowly head back towards the construction site. The skies are starting to tinge with a gentle sunset orange with the sun beginning to descend, I realize it’s probably early evening by now.  _ Spent another day, wasting the world’s time trying to make that stupid enhancer.  _ Even though the scenery is beautiful, the ruby droplets of the trees, the deep viridian of the buildings melting together like Christmas ornaments, it doesn’t help me shake the penetrating chill that sits in my bone marrow, festering, aching. 

_ Well, I was able to get out of that situation… but at what cost?  _

_ He was only being so aggressive because I was resisting so much, he wouldn’t have if I’d just relaxed and not been so uptight, scared for nothing but selfish reasons. And now, with it interrupted in junction with the double whammy of my outburst and Silver’s behavior, locking him out… As much as I’m grateful for that, I’m terrified of the ramifications. But I don’t know if they will be worse or better than if he  _ **_had_ ** _ come inside, probably finish what he started but with added ire after my stupid smart mouth got the better of me… _

I set Silver down with the other Voltron lions as steadily as I can despite how hard my hands are shaking, I feel like I’m drowning in the taste of mint on my tongue and it’s horrible, it’s so sickening and overpowering that as soon as my lion is stable I have to lean my head on the holographic panel to steady my breathing and settle the abrupt queasiness. I can feel Silver’s essence encompass me some more, I feel a trickle of heat coming from the White Lion’s stone tucked against my chest under my shirt and it eases the nausea.

Something hot and wet drips onto my forearm and when I sit upright I feel the tears sliding down my cheeks. I try to shove them away, the anxiety and the wallowing fear abate and are replaced with self-directed fury,  _ what the fuck is wrong with you, why are you crying, there is no reason for you to be crying right now, you brought all this on yourself and you have no right to be upset about it. This is karma and you deserve it, you deserve this pain because you’re a selfish cheater who cares more about what you want rather than what is right and what other people deserve. _

Suddenly I lash out and punch my fist into the metal wall beneath my lion’s panel to give me something else to focus on,  _ to give me something real to cry about,  _ and it surprisingly helps. I wring my hand in my lap, hissing as I look down and see the immediate bruise that had begun to blossom from the impact; the White Lion’s stone hums on my chest and I watch as the mark recedes slowly, like a violet being scooped out of the water until it’s gone. 

“I… thank you, for doing that.” I murmur under my breath with another shaky breath and a double meaning aimed at Silver. She rumbles, her presence within me is like a second consciousness; I wipe my eyes and sniffle to regain my voice, “... But you can’t do that again, you hear?” 

I can feel Silver’s immediate displeasure at the request so I quickly follow up with a gentler tone, “You can’t just come attacking where I am when something happens. I know you were just trying to help, but… In the long run… I think what you did is just going to make things worse.” 

Silver’s deadly quiet. A lump forms in my throat as I reach out and caress her holographic panel apologetically, “I know you didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m not ungrateful.” She doesn’t answer, not like I’m expecting her to, but the warmth of her presence being sucked away so suddenly makes my hands shake as I desperately stretch my hand flat on the panel, “Listen, I can handle myself, okay? You don’t need to worry about me. You’ve gotta help out the others and let your quintessence soak into the teludav for when we take down Zarkon.  _ That’s  _ the important thing. Okay?” 

Her presence is long gone, I feel high and dry like a salmon yanked from the water by a bear’s teeth and then left to rot in the beating rays of the sun. Swallowing on the lump in my throat I rub my eyes again to ensure the tears are gone before slumping back in my seat, feeling cold and alone. 

Suddenly the holographic panel to my right pings, and I look up right as Shiro’s voice echoes into my cabin, “Will, are you on your way back to the Castle?”

Immediately I start up to my feet, “Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Kolivan just hailed us, said he had important intel from his contact in Zarkon’s command. Get here as soon as you can.”

“I’m on my way.” I bark back resolutely as the feed ends, I set off down the stairs at a brisk pace with the new goal in mind. 

It takes the whole walk back for me to force my feelings into a manageable box that can remain hidden while I’m with the others. The exercise from climbing up the ramps up to the Castle helps, so by the time I’d taken the surface projector and rushed to the bridge my slightly heavy breath has replaced the ashy buzzes of my thoughts enough that I’m able to focus immediately when I enter the room.

The team is already gathered at the front within Allura’s circle, she being mentioned stands in her spot at its center with her palms resting on the control pillars. At the front of the ship projected onto the massive holographic screen is a live video feed of Kolivan; he’s in his Blade armor without a cowl, letting his fluffy ears and long, white braid hang around him, he’s backlit by a lilac wall, no doubt from within their base. 

I drift in from the back silently, as he;s already speaking when I arrive, “-Haggar. She is Zarkon’s right hand, and commands a segment of Galra that possess what I can best describe as magic. This is who I mean when I refer to the druids.” I start at the familiar term, immediately recalling the times I’d heard their mention; they’re the Galra responsible for Sendak and Shiro’s prosthetic arms, that was the shadow with the violet lightning that powers the quintessence transmutation that crafts the Empire’s power sources… and they’re commanded by someone named Haggar. Apparently.  _ I’m glad I came in at the perfect time, but I wonder what else I may have missed.  _

“And you’re saying that low ranking Galra officers are being approached by these druids for some sort of ritual?” Allura sums up with an incredulous tone and a cocked eyebrow of disbelief. 

Kolivan gives a brief, subtle nod, “Thace is unsure what this ritual entails specifically. Zarkon’s druids are the only sphere that we have been unable to penetrate due to the manner Haggar recruits them; they’re the Empire’s most loyal and most secretive military division.”

“So… like the secret service?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow, looking over at Shiro on his left with a look garnering for approval but Shiro doesn’t meet his gaze, he merely looks up at Kolivan with a set brow of worry. 

“So it it a weapon of some sort?” Keith’s voice snatches my attention as he looks up at Kolivan with a placid expression and crossed arms, “Something related to their quintessence transmutation operations like at the space base?”

Kolivan’s golden eyed gaze slides pensively to the side for a moment, “Perhaps. We are unsure as of yet. However, there is a closed off section of Zarkon’s command vessel that only the druids and a handpicked set of engineers are allowed to venture into. Thace has been attempting to gain access, but with Haggar taking the reins on finding our people in their ranks it is unlikely he will be able to discover what lies within before we enact our plan.”

“Yep,  _ definitely _ getting some secret weapon vibes, here.” Hunk mumbles with a tremble in his voice, looking off to the sides of the bridge with wide eyes like he’s planning an escape route. 

“This is valuable intel.” Shiro murmurs in a thoughtful tone, his brow is set and his gaze is distant as he continues in a louder, more commanding manner, “This just means we have to get the teludav working as soon as possible. We can’t give Zarkon the time he needs to finish making whatever lies on that part of his ship.”

“Affirmative.” Kolivan replies with a terse nod, “How goes the timeline on the teludav’s completion?”

Allura answers him with a placid, emotionless gaze, “Four days. There have been a few setbacks thanks to Slav…  _ your genius  _ engineer.” She speaks with a slight lilt of accusation in her tone that is detectable but not enough to be socially acceptable to call out.  _ She’s probably good at that, being a political figure.  _

Kolivan merely blinks, his expression doesn’t change in the slightest, “Slav’s methods are admittedly… confusing. But for every decision he has made, they lead to the success of a mission, even if it is not immediately obvious because of his ability to calculate the probability of different events.” Kolivan’s serpentine pupils flicker around the room briefly, “If you’ve exchanged even a few words with him, then I’m certain you know of what I speak.”

“Oh, yeah, we’ve definitely  _ exchanged words.”  _ Lance huffs with a tired expression, his arms crossing with a dramatic roll of his eyes. Internally it makes me wonder what Slav did to get on Lance’s  _ fuck this guy  _ list, especially because Lance is so generally… easy going. Not to be confused with easy to get along with, because our first two days at the Castle beg to differ. 

Shiro shares a hard look with Allura for a brief moment before he looks back up at Kolivan, “He’s working diligently with the Olkari, and now they’re making some serious headway on the gravity generator. I don’t think he’ll be any further uh… hinderance.” 

“I’m confident that regardless of the initial impression of his actions, they will be beneficial in the long term run of our operation.” 

“As you say.” Allura states with an edge of cold in her voice that sends shivers up my spine. 

Shiro quickly continues with a short, hard breath, “Let us know if you hear any more information. We’ll call you when we’re ready so you can join us on the Castle.” 

“Understood.” Kolivan blinks before the feed cuts, and we’re left to our own devices on the bridge. 

“Well… this Haggar lady definitely sounds like… seriously bad news.” Hunk voices with a dry swallow. 

Pidge turns to look at Allura with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms over her chestplate, “Is it possible that she’s able to manipulate quintessence like you do?”

Allura sternly shakes her head, “No. No Galra has ever been able to. It is solely an Altean genetic trait.”

“Hopefully, with the destruction of Zarkon’s ship, she  _ and  _ Zarkon can be taken out of the picture in one fell swoop.” Shiro states firmly, his arms crossed over his chest in his comforting  we can destabilize the Empire.

With the current conversation subject subsiding to a lull, I look up and inadvertently meet Pidge’s gaze; I can see with the eye contact a question has sparked, internal dread immediately rises to meet it as she opens her mouth, “Okay, so now that we’re here… Can we talk about Will’s lion suddenly attacking the lab without any provocation?”

_ Oh there was provocation. Just nothing that you, or anyone else, ever needs to know about. Especially now that I’ve told her never to do it again.  _

Hunk immediately nods, looking over at me briefly as he throws up his hands, “Yeah man, what the heck was  _ that  _ all about? I seriously hope I’m not right that our lions are rallying to overthrow us. They wouldn’t do that, right?”

Lance gives Hunk an incredulous side eye, “Dude, no. Why would they when they can just lock us out?”

Pidge nods with a slight jut of her chin in Lance’s direction, “Yeah, and they totally can do that. Damien proved that much.” 

I find myself tensing when I feel Shiro’s gaze lock on me, his stance is no different than usual but with the sudden climbing of anxiety in my throat he looks intimidatingly tall, larger than life, “Did anything happen at the lab that could’ve caused it?”

All eyes turn to me and I feel like I just got grabbed by the wrists and locked into stocks for public shaming.  _ Make it convincing. They can’t know, or even remotely guess that you’re lying… as much as I hate to, it’s the only option. The alternative leaves to nothing but disaster on literally every front.  _ “No idea.” I shrug while crossing my arms, while I find the answer to be quite convincing, as does Hunk and Pidge by the looks of it, Shiro’s eyes narrow, I feel his gaze like toothpicks trying to pry my nails off. “Seriously.” I state with less room for argument, looking right back at him challengingly; but I can only hold it for so long before the eye contact becomes unbearable, especially with how unchanged and intense Shiro’s gaze is, I slide my gaze to the side to make it look less like I’m lying and more like I’m just done making eye contact because that’s  _ normal,  _ right?  _ Of course it is, I do that all the time… _

“Maybe it was something to do with your stone.” Pidge offers with a slight shrug, pushing her glasses up her nose, “You were trying to make the quintessence enhancer, right?”

I feel like the question should have been rhetorical, but something about her demeanor makes it sound genuine and it sparks something harsh, bitter, and icy in my mouth like antifreeze. “Of course I was.” I snap back a little sharper than I mean to. Her eyebrows rise a little in surprise, giving me a once over as if to evaluate  _ what the fuck is you doing, bro  _ and my throat tightens almost to a strangle.

_ I need to change the subject. The more they question this, start to pick it apart, they’ll realize that I’m not telling the truth.  _

I wave a hand dismissively before shoving them both in my pockets, “It doesn’t matter anymore. I uh… talked to her… kind of… and made sure that it won’t happen again.”

“Well did she tell you  _ why?”  _ Every muscle in my body tenses when I hear Keith speaking to me, when I look up and meet his gaze my breathing stops because of how stone faced and  _ hard  _ it is, the expressionless mask he dons is so tangible I could reach out and touch his face and it would feel cool just like rock.  _ Keith…  _

Hunk, thankfully, comes to my rescue, “Well, it doesn’t really work like that. It’s not like,  _ actual  _ talking, it’s like… feelings, thoughts being fed into your brain.”

_ And it doesn’t matter any more because it won’t happen again, so can we please fucking move on to something else, anything else?  _

“Regardless of the motives…” Shiro continues with a slight edge in his tone, one that I can’t quite identify save that it’s course, and I try and swallow on the stone in my throat as he speaks like a drill sergeant, “If Will says she won’t do it again, then I trust it. And that’s what matters. We can’t afford any more delays on the construction of the teludav.”

There’s silence for a long time as we stand in a general collective, I try to keep my gaze to the floor in as much of a lackadaisical manner as possible. Allura’s silence is terrifying, whenever I look in her direction I find her gaze is sharper and more penetrating, like a razor’s edge, and I can’t bring myself to meet it.  _ Right. Because she hates me, ‘cause I slept with Keith. And now…  _

“Okay, so like… can we address the choferiak in the room?” Lance suddenly pipes up. When I glance over at him I freeze when I see him looking at me questioningly, I feel what’s coming like the smell of ozone right before a lightning strike and I find myself tensing before he even opens his mouth, “So like… dude… how is it we had no idea you’re dati-”

Absolute fear strangles my throat and I hiss without a second thought,  _ “No.”  _

Lance immediately clams his mouth shut. I clench my shaking hands into fists so as to disguise the fact that I feel like I’m two seconds from bolting like a frightened cat, I keep my eyes to the ground, I don’t want to see their faces,  _ I don’t want to see their faces, _ “I’m not talking about this.” 

I state this with as little room for questions as possible, at the last second do I consider whether or not I’m being fair.  _ In all honesty… it’s a legit thing. It  _ **_should_ ** _ be addressed so as to clear the air, but not with everyone in the same room. Not with everyone looking at me, judging me, hating me for what I’ve done, who I’ve been revealed to be- _

But they’re looking at me like I’ve grown two heads. Like I’m a rabid dog two seconds from biting off the next person’s hand. I can’t look at Keith. I  _ can’t.  _ I don’t want to see his expression, I don’t want to see the glare I can feel, the harshness is like the Texan sun.

“Besides, none of that matters.” I wave dismissively, trying hard to keep my tone even, to keep it from sounding how upset I feel but it’s hard, I’m only mildly successful, “We’re on a mission to defeat Zarkon once and for all, we don’t have time to bother with t-that.”  _ That. Him. This. _ “So just fucking  _ drop it _ , alright?” 

I can’t take it. The stares, the silence, the looks of concern, worry, pity, eyes that whisper  _ what the fuck is wrong with you. _ I can’t fucking take it. I whirl around and speed out of the bridge without another word, their silence is so tangible in my wake that it feels like a pillow being pressed over my face, smothering me, holding me down,  _ I can’t breathe.  _

I’m not followed as I flee back to my room, I don’t stop, I don’t breathe, I don’t do anything but try and hold myself together until the door closes behind me and only then do I crack, I press my face into my hands and sit on my bed, desperately trying to calm myself down as my breath comes too fast, too hard, too much-

_ “One, two, three, four, five, I’m alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, breathe again.”  _ I wheeze, squeezing my eyes shut as I dig my hands into my sheets to keep myself grounded, present, here,  _ relax. You’ve got to stop.  _

_ You can’t be having breakdown after breakdown like this, they’re gonna think you’re insane, more insane than they probably already think I am. Crazy and stupid. The last thing I need is for them to realize what a disgusting person I am, and I know talking about Damien will reveal it, like an atrocious scar. I can’t, not now, not with the fate of the world at stake. _

_ So fucking get over yourself.  _

Slowly I recover from my third panic attack of the day. I recognize that that’s what these are. This isn’t normal. This shouldn’t be happening to me because this isn’t something I should be upset over. I’m not the victim here.  _ Keith is. Damien is. Because I’m a coward and couldn’t break up with him back on Earth, and even more so now that he’s back and I finally did something about my feelings for Keith and he opened up to me and was vulnerable… only for me to essentially tell him that it’s over, and that it meant nothing to me because I was too scared to push Damien away.  _

_ I can’t just break up with him after reuniting, in space of all places, after he’s obviously been through such an ordeal. If Shiro’s story of his time with the Galra, however limited his memory is, is anything to go by… I can’t imagine the trauma he’s sustained. And if I broke up with him? After he told me that he thought about me, talked about me, was his grounding factor? That’ll be like ripping out a safety blanket from beneath him. Regardless of how I feel, I can’t be selfish, not with this. I can’t be selfish now.  _

_ But I don’t want it. I don’t want him.  _

I open my eyes once my breath resembles normalcy. 

That’s when I see the shards of dark wood sprinkled on the floor. 

I blink, furrowing my eyebrows as I lean down and grab a piece by my foot. It’s the size of the palm of my hand, smoothed to a gentle sleekness, but the edges are shredded, broken. There are more, I follow the sporadic pattern to the corner of my room, and my heart drops in my chest. 

My guitar, that is what’s left of it, lies neck down, its strings frayed and broken, ripped like twigs, and the head is chipped as it lays in the shattered remains of the body. It looks like when those ancient rock guitarists would grab their instrument by the tip of the neck and smash it into the floor for a performance to drive the crowd wild. 

I let out a shaky breath as I sink to my knees, crawling slightly along the floor and picking the neck up gingerly in my hands. The body is half in tact but the bottom is in complete pieces, the bridge cracks and breaks off and with it the strings unwind and two pop off the loosened pegs. A sob rises in my throat, I hold my hand over my mouth as I hold it in my lap like a small child. 

_ So this is the punishment. This was the price I had to pay for speaking out of turn, embarrassing him in front of the others.  _

I know it was Damien. I  _ know  _ it, there is no other explanation, it all lines up too perfectly; I’m filled with a sudden, violent wave of nausea that I gag once on my mouth before I can suppress the shivers.  _ This is just too perfect. He strikes me directly where he knows it’ll hurt me the most, in the music, but subtly. There’s no way the others could even possibly believe me if I told them that Damien smashed my guitar, that doesn’t make any sense, why would he? Because you told him to shut up? ‘Please, there’s no way, that’s such an overreaction, first of all…’ And I can’t prove it. I just walked into my room to see the broken pieces. It  _ **_could_ ** _ have been anyone… I just know better. But only I do. The others wouldn’t. They would just think I’m crazier than they already do, paranoid  _ **_and_ ** _ crazy.  _

A tear slides down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away.  _ No, I already cried enough today, stop it with the stupid self pity. You deserved this.  _

Looking down at the neck in my hand, the shattered, fraying ends of the wood, ice suddenly seizes my veins. When I realize the duality of meaning behind the fragments in my hands. This isn’t just the punishment… this is a message. 

Damien knows where I sleep. And he can come in whenever he wants to.

I swallow on the sudden dryness in my throat, immediately I stagger to my feet.  _ I can’t stay here. No, no way, I can’t. He could come in at any time in the night and finish what he started, with the others asleep nearby, too, to double the shame.  _

I wrack my brain for an alternative location to sleep, and my heart suddenly aches when my first thought is to rush across the hall to Keith’s room.  _ His warmth, his arms, I want to hug him so fucking badly.  _

_ But there’s no way he’d let me in. Not after all this.  _

_ Even that aside, he’d have too many questions. Questions I could never bring myself to answer, especially when I know he’ll think it’s stupid. Paranoid. Same goes with all the others. I can’t crash in anyone else’s room, I have to find another location. Someplace safe, someplace he can’t reach me…  _

I spark as the idea forms, and immediately I go about grabbing a pillow and a blanket from my bed to take to my lion. It’ll be a bit of a trek to get out of the Castle, but it’s one I’m willing to take for this.  _ I won’t be able to sleep at all, worrying, watching the shadows, waiting for the sound of my door opening…  _

The shards of wood on the smooth metal floors crunch beneath my shoes as I turn to leave, when I look down at thek the ache renews in my chest at seeing the broken pieces, like casualties to a bloody battle that they weren’t a part of, just caught in the crossfire. 

_ I can’t leave them like this.  _

I set down my pillow and blanket and kneel on the floor, going about picking up all the broken pieces. The wooden chips that broke free of the guitar I manage to fit in my fists, I lift up the neck and hold the largest piece of the guitar half under my arm, half in my arms so I can take it outside to dump in the trash can by the bathrooms.  _ Then I’ll grab my stuff and head to my lion. I’ll be safe there… Alone. Away from everyone…  _

“Whoa, oh no, Will, what the heck is that?” 

I panic at the sound of Lance’s voice, I rush and dump the shards in the trash and stuck the main body in, but the neck juts out - I can’t worry about it, I swear under my breath as I quickly whirl around to block his view of it as he approaches me from behind. Allura is with him, which immediately makes my back straighten, and with my strange posture I watch as she tries to look around me to see the trash can. I’m surprised to see no Hunk or Pidge in sight. “Oh!” I clear my throat, swallowing down the sudden desert forming on my tongue as I wave a hand, “Hey! Uh… Headed to bed?”

“Yes.” Allura answers with a set brow, she looks over at Lance as if she’s internally asking  _ why are you speaking to  _ **_him_ ** _ ,  _ but much to my shock Lance doesn’t look back at her. He furrows his eyebrows at me as he looks over my shoulder, my heart sinks when his eyes slightly widen, “Holy shit. Is that your guitar?” I’m forced to step aside as he grabs the neck and pulls it out, loose wood falls off as it hits the metal rim and Allura furrows her eyebrows as she examines it as well. “What  _ happened?”  _ Lance asks with a wide eyed, incredulous look at me.

_ God. Another lie. I hate this. I hate this so fucking much. I don’t want to lie to them, but there’s no other option, they’ll think I’m paranoid, a deranged loose cannon if I tell them the truth.  _

“I uh… dropped it.” 

I can tell it sounds lame. I can hear the holes in it as soon as the words slip out of my mouth, and Allura immediately catches it. “Did you drop it down a flight of stairs and then into a yutmane?” She flicks a finger over a loose, broken string, causing it to bounce like the curl of a child actor’s hair. 

I swallow and dig my fingertips into the palm of my right hand, not so much as a grounding technique but rather as an exterior leak of the internal beating I’m giving myself myself for adding  _ liar  _ to the list of slowly accumulating titles. “... And also fell on it. Mostly crushed it with my body weight.” I mess with the hem of my shirt sheepishly to keep my itching hands busy, laughing awkwardly at my own expense, “Kind of an idiot like that, you know me. Accident prone motherfucker.” I jut both thumbs at myself but both Allura and Lance are giving me expressions that I don’t like, pitying, worried, chilling, so I quickly discard them from my vision as I take retreating steps back, “So I outta-”

Allura’s eyes narrow at me, pinning my feet to the floor as she slowly takes the guitar from Lance. When she turns to look at me again with eyes like a Balmeran crystal I try not to whimper as she speaks in a methodical tone, “I’m sorry that this happened, Will. I know that it meant a lot to you.” She gestures to the strings before looking back at me, strangely enough I get a similar vibe as I did earlier with Damien; somehow what she says is some sort of trap. 

I swallow again. It hurts, for sure. That guitar brought me so much solace since the last time we were on Olkarion, wonderful memories with the team,  _ especially that night we were all in that lounge before the pillow fight… _

_ But you don’t deserve to cherish those memories. Not with them. They’re disgusted with you. Cheater. _

“It’s fine.” I mutter dismissively, even though it hurts to do so.  _ But I can’t have them knowing just how much this is affecting me. They’ll be able to dig deep and see the true reason and if I have to lie again…  _ “It uh… it’s just a block of wood, anyway.” 

Lance blinks at me stupidly and then gives me a look of complete, incredulous confusion, “Dude,  _ what?”  _

I take another slightly panicked step away, pointing a thumb over my shoulder as I fight to keep my voice level, even,  _ normal _ , “I’m about to head to bed, so, I’ll see you guys for training tomorrow, yeah? Yeah, okay, goodnight, sleep well!” I make my escape as fast as acceptably possible before they can stop me. 

I bless all that is good in the world that I don’t encounter anyone else on the way back but the interaction leaves me shaking, apprehensive, anxious,  _ paranoid. God, I’m not subtle at all. Why can’t I hide what’s going on? I was so much better about this back on Earth, I feel safe in saying I was a master of reservation… but I’m no longer reserving my feelings. They’re about one hiccup away from being as bare as the moon on a cloudless night, I just know the team is onto me. But I’m sure they’ll forget all about it in the morning, Shiro will keep us busy with training and we can put all of this behind us…  _

I grab my blanket and my pillow from my bed where I left them before hauling ass out of the Castle, to the surface projector, then out into the open night air of Olkarion. 

It’s peaceful in the darkness, illuminated only by the olive light of the sprawling city below the platform the Castle rests upon. A breeze ruffles my hair and leaves a chill shivering up my spine as I make my way down the ramp towards the construction site, the city lights keep the path relatively clear at least until I get to my lion; her barrier shining like a disco ball in the shrouded night and lights my way more effectively, especially in junction with the other lying standing near her. Its silver surface retreats as I approach and I make my way through her mouth then into the cargo bay below, in her stomach, where I know lie quiet rooms for me to sleep in. 

I turn to the right once I’m at the bottom of the stairs, the walls are illuminated by the white lights ingrained in stripes along the sides. I open the doorway into the right hand room of the three others, one opposite from the stairs and the other opposite of this room; I find emptiness within, save for a holographic panel on the right hand side of the door. Curious I drop my blanket and pillow and tap on it, immediately options sprawl out before me.  _ Level surface low height, level surface medium height, level surface high height, containment unit size one, containment unit size two…  _ Figuring a “level surface” will work as a makeshift bed, I press  _ level surface low height  _ and turn around when I hear the soft whirr of machinery. When I turn around a platform pulls out from the wall at around my knee height, structured like a like a shelf; I find that when I press and hold the button the platform continues to advance outwards, so I let go once it reaches a reasonably bed-sized surface area and then pick up my blanket and pillow to cautiously lie on top of it. It supports my weight easily, it doesn’t even dip or groan, it’s surprisingly strong beneath me like an old diner’s table Another holographic panel is illustrated on the side of the makeshift bed, when I curiously tap on it I can see that it grants me access to my lion’s computer from here.  _ Good, that way the others can contact me through the coms.  _

Satisfied with the arrangement I pull my blanket around my shoulders and close my eyes, but I find sleep doesn’t come to me easily. Rather, immediate cold ices my veins and my blanket does nothing to prevent it, I find myself shivering and curling up in fetal position on the hard metal surface beneath me. 

_ … I miss Keith.  _

_ I slept with Keith for the last two nights, literally, and like a fucking idiot I grew used to it. Accommodated it,  _ **_wanted_ ** _ it. And now I’m alone, so so alone, I feel like I’m on another planet in comparison to the others… but it’s for the best.  _

_ This thing with Damien being back… this is worst case scenario for me. He’s the key to the parts of myself I’ve always tried to keep hidden, the only parts of me that I didn’t want the team to see and now he’s practically ripped the canvas off my form and showed it to them in its full horrendous glory. ‘Look at this cheater, this paranoid, stupid boy who thinks he’s the victim here, can you believe that? After all I’ve been through, he has the audacity to cry because he didn’t have the balls to break up with me on Earth, to push me away even though he has feelings for someone else. He just lets me do what I want to him and he takes it like the good whore he is, Keith had no idea what kind of beast he was signing up for, so good thing I’m here. That I’m back. I’m used to him, I can handle him, I can keep him in check. None of you ever really could do that, could you? You just thought you could. But he isn’t who you thought he was. He’s nothing more than a fraud, a cheater, a liar, and a coward.’  _

I grit my jaw to try and stop the tears as they form all over again, I pound my fist on the metal below me to drown the ache in my chest with a new, tangible pain but it does nothing but make me cry in earnest.  _ Like a pathetic bitch.  _

_ I want to be angry at Damien. I really do. Someplace in the back of my mind I recognize that I’m not directly responsible for his actions, at the end of it he makes the decision to act… but I play a role in how he  _ **_does_ ** _ act. I’m the catalyst that guides his storm, it’s my own fault when I get in caught up in it. _

_ I know it hurts, but I need to talk to Keith. I have to apologize for what I’ve done, for who I am, for hurting him like this. But God, I can’t even look him in the eye. When I did… it was already bad enough, feeling like a freak put on display, but with him looking at me,  _ **_seeing_ ** _ me like this… It made it so much worse. It made it hurt so much worse.  _

_ God knows what he must think of me now. The lowest scum of the Earth. A faithless cheater. Probably thinking he’s lucky, he dodged a bullet because no one wants to be with someone who doesn’t stay with them through thick and thin.  _

_ It’s not fair. This isn’t fair.  _ I sniffle and curl into a tighter ball, pressing my face against the wall with my curved back to the door.  _ I had him for just over twenty four hours. I had him, and everything was perfect. Literally perfect. I held him close and kissed him and he kissed me and it felt so good, it felt so right, I felt so face, it felt absolutely nothing like the cold Damien grips me with.  _

_ I’m so fucking selfish.  _

_ I’m so fucking selfish.  _

_ I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m so sorry I’m me.  _

_ It’s… for the best. ‘Cause Damien’s right. No one can truly want me. And he needs me to be there for him, he’s vulnerable, that’s why he’s acting out like this. If I’m good and do as he asks, he’ll be able to heal and recover. It’s the least I can do to repair the damage I’ve done, even if he doesn’t see it.  _

_ But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be near him, not after knowing the true extent of what he did to me, how he fucked me up so bad romantically that I held back from pursuing Keith for  _ **_weeks_ ** _. I don’t want him to touch me. Ever. But I don’t have a choice.  _

_ Keith deserves better than me, anyway.  _

_ No one wants a broken toy. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i squeeze any more angst into this thing? Yes. Will I? Yes. I'm a sadistic motherfucker.   
> To be absolutely crystal clear with this, Will's headspace in this chapter and in the following chapters is intentionally sporadic and uncertain because he's caught in limbo between survival-mode mindset of being with/around Damien and internal struggles with coming to terms with his new reality. I apologize if the language is excessive, but I felt it necessary to convey how much his head is spinning, and how wild his perspective and opinion can change as he switches between these mindsets.  
> I also STRONGLY advise you to proceed with caution as it only gets worse from here in terms of intensity. As I said before this is a 3/5, and later on it gets to be a straight 5/5. Keep in mind the tags, they're there for a reason, and I will be providing ample warning at the beginning of the chapters.


	19. ... Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot going on with the team, but nothing quite as turbulent as what's passing through Will's head. All in all he thinks that he is completely maxed out on his weekly limit of 'this can't be happening' moments, except he isn't. He feels helpless in his own head, trapped and cornered by chains of his own making but the fires from which they were forged were no idle role in their creation. But now it's getting to a point that the others are noticing something is up. Something that Will desperately is trying to keep a secret for as long as possible.   
> \---  
> **SEVERE WARNINGS: manipulative language, internalized emotional abuse, alcohol, alcohol abuse, dubious consent to drink/lack of consent to drink/peer pressure to drink alcohol, and some sexual non-con elements, on the scale I mentioned in the previous summary of 1 to 5, this chapter is a 1/5, relatively mild in that respect, but much more intense in other, non-sexual manners. Proceed with caution.**

I wake up to the sound of Shiro’s voice right next to my head. “Will? Will, come in!” 

Groggily I roll over, blinking a bit deliriously. It takes me a long time to realize where I am, where the voice is coming from, but once I grow more conscious of my state of being I tap on the holographic panel on the metal surface beside me to answer, “I’m here.”

“Where are you?”

_ Good question.  _ I blink slowly and look around; there are dull white walls, but it’s not like the walls in the Castle, like in my room, it’s… I feel the cold slab of the metal beneath me, only warm where I was originally laying, jutting from the wall in the empty room.  _ Ah.  _ “... In my lion.” I answer tentatively. 

It’s when this realization hits me that I remember  _ why  _ I’m here, what led me to be sleeping in my lion rather than in my room, and an immediate cold shiver seizes my spine. I close my eyes again to see if this is a dream,  _ maybe it was all just a dream, maybe if I fall back asleep and re-wake up-  _

“What? This early?” Lance’s voice cuts through my thoughts like a knife and I try not to wince; he’s too loud, too awake, too alert for my current state of bearings right now. “Did you sleep there?”

“Are you ready to fly?” Shiro interrupts, his tone is snappy and it immediately pulls me into attention.  _ Ready to fly? That means we’ve got somewhere to be. Something’s happening.  _

“I can be in less than five. What’s going on?” I leap to my feet and out of the room, sprinting up the stairs with sudden alertness snapping me entirely awake. I slide into the pilot’s seat, Shiro’s voice follows me into the brightly lit main cabin from the dawning sun spilling inside, “The Olkari just received a distress signal from an ally in the quadrant; the Galra are back, and they’re trying to retake their planet.” Silver’s controls roar to life and with a press of the bars her thrusters activate like thunder under my feet, I launch us into the blood colored sky and beeline towards the Castle,  _ I gotta get in my armor, _ “Ryner’s resources are spread too thin for the Olkari to be able to answer because of the work they’ve been doing on the teludav, so we’re going in instead to drive them back out.”

“We just saw you fly by!” Hunk calls, I can’t help but relax a little when I hear his voice, amiable and warm, “We waved. Just in case you didn’t see.”

Despite the sudden burst of adrenaline making my hands shake, I can’t help but smile, looking through the eyes of my lion I glance slightly downward to the gleaming emerald surface of the Olkari buildings. I’m far too high to possibly see them, but for some reason the small gesture fills me with gentle warmth. I fix my gaze forward again as the Castle gets closer, stating in a matter of fact tone, “I’ve gotta get my armor, I’ll be out before you guys get into your lions.” 

“Man, this trek is really not a great start to a rescue mission.” Lance complains, and although it’s minutely obnoxious I find myself sighing in relief at the normalcy of it. Normalcy, a feeling that doesn’t really feel… well, normal.

I feel kind of… outside of reality. Like I just got hit by a train and now am experiencing the world as a ghost of my former self. It’s all the same, my lion, the controls, the team, their interactions, their voices… I just didn’t expect it to be, but I’m not really sure why I did.  _ Just because you feel weird doesn’t mean everything else has to feel weird. Right back at it again with your selfishness- _

I land in my hanger and as soon as the White Lion is still I haul ass down the stairs and into the armory. I practically jump into my flight suit before clapping on my armor as fast as I can, I’m pulling on the armor on my arms as I race back into my lion in record time. I collapse in the seat and rush to put my helmet on before I’m taking the controls again and leaving the hanger once more, and just in time, too. I see the others lifting off from their place on top of the massive teludav over in the construction site, cast gold in the rising sun. Despite the sudden rush of adrenaline from the fast wakeup, I can’t help but pause and admire the sunrise, the sky is watercolor splashes of rose gold and a soft orange like pink lemonade, the lions rising into the atmosphere haloed by the perfect light.  _ Damn, if I had a camera…  _

Once my helmet is on the com engages, and I join in right as Allura is already midsentence, “-say so. But if you need us, we’re a call away. The Castle is on standby.”

“Thank you Princess, but if Ryner’s intel is correct then Voltron should be more than enough to drive a Galra cruiser off the planet.” Shiro responds curtly. I fall in formation with the others as we ascend into the atmosphere and then beyond, the sunrisen skies give away to the collective blackness of space, and not for the first time and not for the last I’m in awe while simultaneously chilled by the magnitude and eternity of the sudden darkness that replaces the lit colors.  _ So much nothing. So much everything.  _

_ And of all the bullshit that could’ve happened in all of the massive expanse of the universe, Damien just happened to be on Olkarion when I was. Just happened to find me in the lab. Just happened to smash my  _ **_fucking_ ** _ - _

“Alright team, get your heads in the game.” Shiro calls, snapping my attention immediately to the present, which is fortunate as my throat was beginning to tighten and  _ I can’t have that right now-  _ “Engage max thrusters. The planet’s on the fringes of the quadrant, and we need to get there as soon as possible.” 

“Yessir.” My stupid heart stammers when I hear Keith’s husky voice over the com and as I follow Shiro’s command I can’t help but notice how…  _ tired  _ he sounds. Last time I heard him this weary was the last time we left Olkarion. My immediate thought is  _ well he’s probably kind of fucked up after what happened yesterday  _ but I kick it away as fast as it comes.  _ Don’t be so conceited, not everything is about you, he could be tired for any number of reasons. Jesus Christ, Will, when did you get so selfish? _

It only takes a few minutes of our lions barrelling through space for the planet in question to come into view. It’s beautiful, a stunningly bright blue across its entire surface like a glass blown bauble, shimmering with a soft white, internal light, swirls of cotton swarm its surface like a half-felted piece. We spot the Galra cruiser hovering just over its surface, putting the planet’s size in a somewhat understandable context; it’s around the size of the moon by Earth, since the cruiser is about twentieth the size. 

“Alright, let’s split up, scout the planet, get a read on the situation.” Shiro calls, on queue we divide and spread across the planet’s surface on the far side of the cruiser, it doesn’t appear to spot us as we’re not hailed with any oncoming fire. I dive down into the atmosphere, the red streaks of flame from breaking through the layers of gas obstruct my vision only briefly before it clears, but I find that I can’t see any better afterwards because I’m immediately encompassed in a blizzard, hail and snow break against the glass of my lion’s eyes as we fly and I find myself slowing down so I can see attempt to see better. 

“The whole planet seems to be swept up in a blizzard!” Pidge cries into the com. I tap on the panel to my left to check my lion’s scanners and a vague holographic outline of the ground below appears, and small dots along the planet’s surface show the other lion’s positions as they fly along. I look up at the glass of my lion’s eyes to cast an overlay of the holographic outline right as I spot a whizz of violet through the obscurity. Frowning I press on the controls lightly to fly closer, after a few moments ghostly outlines of Galra fighters hovering in the atmosphere come into view, they’re firing down upon what appear to be buildings, at least so it looks on my holographic outline from my lion’s scanners. I engage the White Lion’s lance, her purr resonates through the cabin as we pounce upon them, ripping them to pieces before slipping back into the storm.  _ Well, guess an all-white armor is bound to be helpful here.  _

_ Too bad I’m too incompetent to do it right. Shiro could use this advantage to its fullest extent far better than I ever dream I could, or Keith- _

“I can see some houses, fighters are firing on them but I don’t see any retaliation from the people on the ground.” Hunk barks in a factual tone as I make my way through the snowstorm, but the direction I’m going in it seems to only get worse, it’s more blinding and it makes my scanner fizzle and pop, so I veer away from it while using my lion’s scanner to check the planet’s surface for any further signs of what’s going on. 

“Alright, stay spread out. Destroy any Galra fighters you see and drive them back.” Shiro commands as I flicker my gaze across the shadows of what looks like another village below, I never would’ve known it was there if it weren’t for my lion’s scanner. “If they don’t retreat, we’ll form Voltron and take out the cruiser.” I don’t see any people down below - like I could with the snow - there are just buildings that look like igloos, though many have melted or show blast marks from Galra fighters. 

“The storm’s messing with my scanners, I can’t get a read on where the fighters are!” Lance cries with an edge of worry in his higher pitched voice.

“If nothing else, we can use the snowstorm to our advantage. If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. We still have relative surprise on our side.” Pidge adds on helpfully. I spot a few more fighters ahead of me, their positions given away by the blasts of their purple lasers, I destroy them quickly with a flick of my lion’s head as we cut through them; they don’t even see us coming, none turn to face us in time to defend themselves.  _ Feeling kind of stealthy with this. A white shadow. Ha, cool.  _

“But then if the cruiser doesn’t see us, they might not retreat.” Keith counters with a growl of frustration at the edge of his voice, “We should take the fight straight to the cruiser, draw the fighters off the planet and show them who they’re messing with.” 

Suddenly a massive rockface appears before me, I let out a sharp huff as I slam on the brakes and instead rise upwards before we faceplant against it, following the mountainous incline until it’s gone from beneath our paws. I let out a breath of relief and come about face, blinding snow clashing against my lion’s eyes and blurring our vision even more.  _ The mountain must have been mitigating the full force of the storm. This isn’t sustainable, I can barely see.  _

“We can’t keep fighting on the surface, the storm is too strong.” Shiro’s voice cuts across the com, we listen with absolute attention as he orders, “On me, to the cruiser.” 

I hear the others make noises of recognition as I face my lion skyward, with full thrusters I break through the storm and out into open space within a few seconds. I give Silver’s head a shake to clear any remaining snow from her eyes as we look around, I spot the Blue Lion bolting so I fall in with Lance quickly; after a beat we spot Shiro up ahead, then the Galra cruiser beyond him. Within a few seconds we’re all locked in formation with one another, barrelling through space towards the cruiser on the far side of the planet.  The Galra cruiser seems to have spotted us, as it begins to move with slow bursts of light in the thrusters of its wings, the panels on its sides opening in preparation to fire with its ion cannon on top beginning to turn with it.  _ So this is one of those little cruisers like we faced on Arus. Definitely shouldn’t be a problem, since we were able to destroy it after we formed Voltron for the first time ever. _

“It doesn’t look like it’s retreating!” Hunk cries with a note of anxiety, we move in sync with one another about the back of the cruiser before it has the chance to fire, out of its guns’ line of sight to give us the time we need. 

“Then they leave us no choice.” Shiro states with a voice full of purpose, “Form Voltron!”

I close my eyes and grip my controls as I reach out with my internal essence towards the others. Like always I snag Pidge and Hunk quickly and Shiro soon after, it takes a few extra seconds to latch onto Keith’s and Lance’s but before long I open my eyes again and look out the chest of Voltron, just in time for the cruiser to start moving again to fix its guns upon us. I can feel Pidge and Hunk in my head relatively immediately, Pidge is tired, she had a late night closely inspecting and analyzing the video of Matt’s breakout, Hunk had a nightmare last night,  _ bodies strewn on a field of blood, gore on my hands, the others look at me and see a failure, I couldn’t save them- _

I frown, an ache settling in my chest that I wish didn’t feel so familiar.  _ I’m so sorry, Hunk. _

_ ‘It’s okay… I’m feeling better now.’  _ He isn’t. He’s still scared shitless, but he doesn’t want to worry us. So, I don’t acknowledge it, I just let him be so he doesn’t recognize that I recognize his somewhat self denial. To let him think I’m not immediately kicking myself bloody at being so selfish and fixated on my own issues instead of the others-

_ ‘Hey don’t be so hard on yourself, Will. You definitely uh… had a lot of problems yesterday.’  _ Pidge’s discomfort, she didn’t want to see that all happen,  _ that was a huge yikes-  _

Slight panic seizes my veins. Damien.  _ Fuck, fuck that’s right, oh goddamnit, of everything that could’ve happened…  _

_ ‘Whoa, easy man, it’s okay.’  _ Hunk doesn’t know what to do, what to say, he’s completely at a loss, nothing like this has ever happened to him before, it’s some seriously next level soap opera drama,  _ how is this gonna effect the team in like, the long run?  _

My memories betray me, inadvertently I feel my grasp on the controls tighten when Damien’s voice overwhelms my thoughts, my chin in his hand, green apples on my tongue,  _ “You’re my boyfriend first, and a paladin second.” _

_ ‘Oh come on, don’t let this be like that time with Keith all over again.’ _

_ ‘... That’s kind of a weird thing for him to say-’ _

I’ve never had such absolute fear grab me so fast.  _ They’re in my head, I forgot they’re in my head, they can see, no, no-  _

“Alright, let’s take out those guns first.” Shiro calls, I barely hear him as my breath freezes, “Form sword!” 

I don’t think, I don’t blink, even as the hum of the sword rings through the cabin all I can hear is Pidge and Hunk’s complete confusion as to why I’m suddenly so afraid,  _ dude what’s gotten into you- _

_ I can’t.  _

I act without a second thought, I do something I’ve never done before,  _ I just have to get them out of my head, I can’t let you in my head- _

I rip my essence out of our collective braid. 

With a sudden blast my lion and I are hurtling backwards, I hear the others let out sharp cries as we tumble through space. It takes me a second to right myself, when I look up again I see the others in their lions scattered around me, twisting about in the air as they regather themselves. We’re no longer in Voltron. 

_ I accidentally ripped us out of Voltron. _

_ Except it wasn’t an accident. Not really. I had to get away, I had to get Pidge and Hunk out of my head, I just didn’t think- _

“What the heck was that?!” Lance shrieks incredulously, his voice is suddenly loud and piercing in my ears, I almost turn the volume down to block it out. 

Pidge’s voice is stunned and accusatory with an edge of complete disbelief, “Will, what the fuck did you do-” __

“They’re about to fire! Move, move, move!” The Black Lion slices past me, a shadow among the blackness of space, and I barely look in time to see the cruiser open fire. Blasts of violet light rake through empty space outward and towards us, I press on the controls just as the laser slices through the area we just were. My lion’s legs work with powerful pumps as I twist us about, purposefully blocking out the internal backlash of  _ what the fuck did I just do _ so I can instead focus on closing the distance between myself and the cruiser, activating my lion’s lance.

“Why did we rip apart like that? Is Zarkon on the ship?” Keith’s voice just makes the sinking pit in my stomach worse, my throat seizes and my hands stall slightly on the controls.  _ No. I did it. I ripped us apart.  _

“It was Will!” Pidge snaps, “He pulled out!” 

I feel like I should explain myself. I should say something, apologize,  _ fucking say something  _ but my jaw is locked, it’s like there’s a screw in my throat that’s holding my mouth closed.  _ Why can’t you say something? ‘Cause I’m scared of what I’ll say. _

“How is that even possible?” Lance cries with a stupified tone.

A sudden fiery flash of pain smashes into my side, the White Lion and I are sent reeling as I let out a sharp gasp. I jolt on the controls, righting myself and snapping my thoughts back to the present as another violet bolt whizzes towards me, I roll my lion to the side to dodge it.  _ Fuck, ow. That’s what I get, I deserved that, come on, Will, fucking focus- _

“We can’t think about that right now, we’ve got to take out the cruiser’s guns!” Shiro barks. Internally I thank him for not pressing me on it at the moment before I beat those thoughts bloody in my head,  _ you’re being so fucking selfish right now, what the fuck is wrong with you, what the fuck are you doing-  _

When I look up again I see the cruiser’s ion cannon, once sitting still facing towards the nose, start to creak in our direction, the flare of violet light beginning to pulse in its nose, evidently done charging. “It’s about to fire the ion cannon!” Hunk shrieks in terror. 

“We’ve gotta take it out before it goes off! Lance, Keith, come about from the other side and take it out from the base with your lions’ jawblade!” Shiro snaps impatiently, a whizz of scarlet rips by me as the Red Lion barrels towards the cruiser. I dodge another laser, watching as the Blue Lion comes from the other direction and together their blades rip through the metal beneath the ion cannon. 

“Nice work, team!” Shiro cries, but they were a few seconds too late; the ion cannon’s still somehow connected to its powersource even though the outer metal is shredded, and with a burst of violet it goes off like a shotgun. I spot the Black Lion running parallel with the ship as the bolt fires, something in me snaps and time seems to slow. I can see the shot’s trajectory right as it launches from the ship, without a second thought I make a pass next to Shiro, putting my lion between him and the ship right as it strikes. It would’ve shot the Black Lion in the side, but I moved just in time for the shot to hit the White Lion instead. 

A fresh, raw burn erupts along my ribcage, right where the last shot was and sudden white flashes dance across my vision like aurora borealis as Silver and I spin away from the ship from the momentum of the blast. It feels like a hot skillet just smashed into me full force and it’s leaving my breath stolen and lungs burning.

“Will!” Shiro gasps, I can somewhat hear him through the ringing in my ears as my grip on the controls tighten. I shake my head with a growl under my shaking breath,  _ shake it off, you baby, _ I right the White Lion in time for the next volley from the cruiser’s main guns as he continues in a demanding manner, “Are you alright?”

“Fine.” I croak, clearing my throat at the end when I realize just how disused my voice is, “I’m fine!” Breathing is hard, but I ignore it as best as I can to focus on keeping from getting shot again.

“Hunk, help from the other side!” Pidge cries. I twist my lion about and head back towards the cruiser, mostly on muscle memory, and spot the Green and Yellow Lions make a pass on the facing gunside of the cruiser. The Yellow Lion comes about from the front, Hunk lets out a battle cry before he crashes head on with the base of the cannon and with a loud creak I can hear in my head the entire nozzle pops off, floating uselessly through space as the light within it dies out like the flick of a switch. Ripples of debris spiral out in their wake, stray bolts of light ring out but are quickly silenced, the lions make short work of the cruiser’s side turrets, leaving them defenseless. 

Suddenly the cruiser’s wings come to life, the thrusters activate and the cruiser peels away from the planet at full speed. 

“They’re retreating!” Hunk yells enthusiastically, immediately the others let out relieved breaths and congratulatory noises as the cruiser becomes a mere speck of purple light within seconds, melting quickly among the stars.

“Good work, team.” Shiro lets out a slow breath, the White Lion and I slowly turn to the collected bunch of lions before us as he continues, “Let’s head back to Olkarion.”

We don’t fall in formation this time, rather flying in a loose group back hence we came. I follow from the back, internally telling myself it’s because I don’t know where I’m going but also because I want to stay out of everyone’s line of sight. Delaying the inevitable. The radiating agony in my side makes it harder, it’s definitely burned if not more, but it’s alleviating bit by bit, especially now that I can breathe again. When I look down I see the light of my lion’s stone shining against the whiteness of my armor.  _ There’s at least one good thing going for me.  _

“Will, are you alright?” I tense when I hear Shiro’s voice over the com, my grip on the controls feel like icicles freezing over a river as he rumbles with a tone full of obvious concern, “You took a nasty hit there.” That’s when I hear the edge of guilt, barely noticeable on the fringes of his tone. 

My vow of silence ends with the melting of the ice in my throat. “I’m fine. Stone’s healing me now.”  _ Don’t feel guilty, it was the least I could do after…  _

“Okay, so to address the choferiak in the room,” Lance barges in, with the collective team’s reminder of my presence. I squeeze my eyes shut as heavy guilt like cement fills my lungs and starts to harden, Lance continues with a confused tone, “What the heck happened back there, dude? Pidge said you pulled us out of Voltron.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even think that was possible.” Hunk tacks on at the end, though his voice doesn’t sound accusatory or confused, merely emanating speculative, scientific curiosity.

I swallow as silence follows, they expect an answer. I  _ owe  _ them an answer. But I don’t have any. Nothing I can say that will truly make anything better. So I vie for an apology. “I’m sorry.” My tone is hard, harder than I mean it to, I’m just trying to sound unaffected and monotonous but it’s coming out steely. I soften it as much as I can with the words that follow, “It won’t happen again.” 

“But why did it happen in the first place?” Lance persists, internal annoyance pricks at the solidifying stone in my chest as he huffs, “Why’d you do it?”

To my shock and then horror, Pidge answers for me, “‘Cause he started thinking about his boyfriend and got distracted.” 

I can’t tell what tone of voice Pidge is using. It’s so even and simple that it’s difficult to glean information from. Not that I can focus on that anyway, since the horrible, deadly silence that hangs in the air crushes any other thought with it, crowding me into a mental corner full of white noise, voices filled with annoyance and disgust.  _ Distracted. Incompetent. Waste. _

Olkarion comes into view by the time that Shiro breaks the silence with a charismatic tone, “... Regardless of what made it happen, it can’t happen again. We’re days out from taking down Zarkon, and we  _ need  _ to have our heads in the game.” I take a shaky breath as sea salt swells in the back of my throat like the tide, Shiro continues with a more demanding tone, “Understood?”

There’s a general chorus of assent among the com, even though we all know their confirmation is completely unnecessary because it’s solely targeted at me, and I can  _ feel  _ it. Hurt. Judgment. Confusion.  _ He started thinking about his  _ **_boyfriend_ ** _. And got  _ **_distracted_ ** _. _

We descend into the atmosphere and land our lions back on the teludav where we have been instructed to keep them until it’s up and running. I see the other lions kneeling down to let their respective pilots out and I know  _ damn well  _ that the last thing I should do is walk out of mine and face them. Look at them. See the annoyance and distrust on their faces.  _ I don’t want to see them.  _

I didn’t think it was possible but even more disgust and frustration wells in my throat. I beat myself to hell in my brain, I grab the sides of my helmet and faceplant against the holographic board in front of me,  _ what the fuck is wrong with you, why did you do that, this isn’t about you, this isn’t about Damien and what the fuck is going on with all that, I jeopardized the mission, Shiro almost got hurt because of what I did-  _

_ But I couldn’t stay in their heads, they would’ve seen everything, they would’ve known just how fucking horrible I am, more so than they already do, probably-  _

“Will, are you coming down?” Shiro’s voice is soft, tentative, it makes red hot embarrassment that’s so potent it makes anger bubble in the pit of my stomach and flash up my face, highlighting the outlines of my shame. 

“... I’m cleaning up some stuff. I’ll catch up with y’all later.” I answer enigmatically, it takes all of my stupid effort to keep the tremble out of my voice and that just makes the rage inside me burn stronger, I curl my fist and bang it on the holographic keyboard to bring about some fresh pain,  _ no crying, you’ve had enough crying, cry again and I’ll give you something to cry about-  _

I hear his voice again over the com, gentler and more insistent, “Open up.” I blink and raise my head, taking my helmet off and peering over the lip of the glass to look down before realizing  _ I can’t fucking see, _ so instead I tap on the holographic panel to my right to check out the outside camera. Below, just in front of my lion’s feet, Shiro stands with his hands on his hips, looking up at Silver’s face and almost straight through my eyes and into my heart as he continues, “It’s just me.” 

I know what he’s really saying.  _ It’s just me, the others aren’t listening on the com, you can trust me. _ I play stupid. “I told you I’ll catch up.” I insist. I force my face to be placid and unreadable, even though I know Shiro can’t actually see me it’s something I need to do for myself, I have to keep myself  _ under fucking control.  _

“I hear you, but I’m worried about you.” Shiro murmurs in that annoying parental tone, his form is unmoving from below, “Let me in, we should talk.” 

A soft bout of fear spikes, it’s growing more and more familiar as time goes on. I answer a little too quickly, “I told you I’m sorry, I promise it won’t happen again, okay?”

Shiro lets out a pressed sigh, “I get that, and I believe you, but I-”

“Then can you just fucking drop it?” I snap back, cutting him off with a sharp edge and I immediately regret it. My throat seizes and tears threaten to spill out from nowhere, I dig my fingertips into my right palm so hard that if I didn’t have gloves then my nails would probably break the toughened skin as punishment. 

Shiro’s quiet. He stands in front of my lion unmoving for a long time, a silent sentinel, until after at least a solid minute he turns on heel and marches away. 

A dam breaks. I rip off my helmet and throw it across the room as hard as possible and stand up, turning and kicking my chair, which turns out to be a horrible mistake because it doesn’t give and my foot within my boot aches from the sudden jarring, I fall backwards and slam my back into the smooth white surface beneath my holographic panel. The pain helps but it doesn’t mitigate the swell, I bury my face in my hands as the sobs I desperately tried to bury burst forth without my consent, I whimper and wheeze to try and wrangle myself under control but it’s for naught, I can’t even get my breathing to even out. I rasp, shaking, crying, angrily wiping my eyes as my thoughts press in around me and smother me like a pillow over my face,  _ you selfish fucking prick, what the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t handle even thinking about Damien without acting like a fucking baby, and now the others hate you because they think you’re mooning over a long lost lover like some pathetic bitch instead of doing my fucking job, just another fucking reason why a civilian shouldn’t be piloting a fucking war machine, this wouldn’t be happening if I had as much experience as Shiro or Hunk or Pidge or Lance or Keith-  _

_ Imagine how Keith must feel now, hearing that, like a punch to the gut. He opens up to me, he trusted me and not only did I fucking reveal myself to be a cheating whore he probably thinks I’m dropping him to be with Damien, I’m such a stupid, lying, dirty, sick fucker-  _

It takes an embarrassingly long time to calm down. It doesn’t help that I can’t stop beating myself into a pulp in my head, each fresh thought causes another sob to rise and choke me. Eventually it subsides when I simply grow too exhausted to keep going, leaving me with a headache that hurts as much as the easing pains in my side. It feels better thanks to my stone, but it still pinpricks like a bitch and I figure it probably will for a hot minute or ten. A part of me wonders if I should head to the healing pods in the Castle but I decide against it at the last minute,  _ no need to be so dramatic. I’ll be fine soon, and it’s not like I’ve got somewhere to be that I need to be healed up for in a hurry.  _

I sit upright and let my head fall back against the side of my panel, closing my eyes as I take a few calming breaths.  _ I need to face the others eventually. Like Shiro said, we’re facing off with Zarkon in a matter of days and I can’t afford to be splitting the team now because I’m a fucking… this. Whatever  _ **_this_ ** _ is. A disaster, for sure. _

_ And I think the place to start is to talk to Keith.  _

_ But what the fuck am I supposed to say? ‘I’m sorry my ex-boyfriend who doesn’t know he’s my ex-boyfriend showed up and basically claimed me in front of the whole team’? Or ‘I’m sorry I’m too afraid of myself to confront him, and too cowardly to face you and talk to you about it until now’? _

_ If I do talk to him, I have to tell him about what’s going on with Damien. That I don’t wanna be with him, that he’s not a good person and I can’t do it, I don’t want him, I want Keith. But that opens the door to so many questions. ‘Why not Damien? What’s wrong with him? Why are you telling me this now? If you really felt that way why didn’t you push him away when he kissed you in the hanger? When he kissed you in the labs, touched you and bit you like I did literally the night before- or are you really just so horny that you’re trying to have us both? How selfish are you?’ _

A hot, fresh trail of wetness falls down my cheek.  _ Damnit.  _ I wipe it away quickly before more can form, swallowing on the salt, and instead focusing on the sudden growl in my stomach.  _ I’m hungry. I can’t hide in here forever. I have to eat, I have to face the others. If I do it now and try to smooth over the discomfort, maybe I can’t fix that massive fuckup but I can put a bandage over it, help it heal enough that we can still work as a team for what will probably be the most important fight of our lives once the teludav is done in a few days.  _

Determination hardens my resolve, I rise to my feet. Shakily I take off my armor, leaving it in my lion before I make the long journey back to the Castle on foot. 

… 

It’s well past the afternoon now, going into early evening as I walk through the loud, echoing white halls on my way to the kitchen.  _ Makes sense as to why I’m so hungry,  _ I think to myself,  _ I don’t remember the last time I ate. I think it was breakfast yesterday, before we met Damien and his two delightful companions.  _ The hunger is a welcome companion, a pain that bounces off the headache and the burn on my side, each of them feeds into the other so not one single one hurts too much, it’s kind of a blessing in disguise that way.

As I approach the kitchen the silence is broken by the sound of voices inside, I freeze. I hear Hunk and Lance for certain, but I don’t know just how many of the team lies inside. 

_ Fuck it.  _ I take a shallow breath, steeling myself,  _ just rip off the awkwardness bandaid, you got this.  _ After I can keep my face in a successful mask without cracks I walk inside.  

Of the team, all but Shiro are within. Lance and Pidge are sitting on the counter facing Hunk by the ovens, fishing around with oven mitts on with something inside, and to my internal horror Keith leans with his arms crossed on the counter to Lance’s left, closest to the door. They all turn to look at me when the door opens and I have to fight to turn and run because of the well of emotions that start to overflow,  _ God  _ eye contact has never been so hard in my  _ fucking life.  _

“Hey man!” Lance pipes up a little overenthusiastically, internally I cringe but overall am somewhat thankful that at least someone’s trying to overcome the horrid, freezing atmosphere that clings to the space. “Hunk’s trying to make some of that weird stuff Coran gave us that one time but actually make it good, if you’re hungry.” 

My stomach almost immediately growls, even though as I recall that  _ something  _ was literally the grossest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.  _ Just goes to show how starving I am.  _ “I’d love to but I’m not up to playing Russian roulette with that.” I attempt to joke, avoiding all eyes as I make a beeline for the goo station on the wall, “I’ll stick with goo.” 

“Suit yourself!” Hunk cries over his shoulder, “This is gonna be a masterpiece, I just know it!” 

Pidge smirks as she props a knee up on the counter, looking over at Hunk, “Like those scaultrite ‘cookies’ were?”

Lance snickers at this as Hunk pouts, the tension in the atmosphere seems to lift as I set my bowl on the counter and lean on my elbows to eat. _Or maybe I’m the only one who feels it, this tension._ Nonetheless it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, I expected them to stare me down until I apologized or was driven out by their looks alone but it’s like the awkwardness of earlier never happened, I feel rather welcomed back to the fold, as it were. I glance around to get a better gauge and inadvertently make eye contact with Keith and my throat tightens, I nearly choke on my goo as he peers at me head on. He doesn’t look upset, he doesn’t look like anything, his expression is a stone wall and his gaze is a cool steel in the overhead light; he doesn’t shift, he hardly even seems to breathe, but most importantly to me he doesn’t move to leave. He stays, with his arms crossed while pinning me to the floor with his gaze - it’s not very intense, I think it’s just the guilty ice in my veins that’s doing that - but he stays. _So he’s not mad at me enough to storm off whenever I’m present. That’s… a huge relief. Maybe I can manage to get him alone long enough to…_

_ To what? To what, to what, to what? _

“Excuse you, but I don’t recall  _ you  _ complaining about how my cookies saved our  _ lives _ that one time!” Hunk huffs indignantly, crossing his arms as he gives Pidge a stink eye, which she returns with a shit eating grin. 

I pull my gaze from Keith’s a bit reluctantly - God, I  _ missed  _ those beautiful eyes - to cock an eyebrow at Hunk, “Who would’ve thought that your cooking experiments could stop a brutal tyrant from stealing the most powerful weapon in the universe right out from under us! You better keep at it, who knows when we’ll need that marshmallow fluffy stuff you made to like… heal another Balmera or something.”  

Hunk’s eyebrows raise and Lance snorts with a loud laugh, “Yeah, that would be a time. Just like, smear it all across the surface then bam, just like Allura’s little quintessence ceremony.”

Keith’s voice pulls my full, undivided attention to him, “How long would it even take to make enough of that to cover an entire planet?” He looks genuinely curious, with his eyebrow raised and his head tilted it’s the closest thing to an emotion I’ve seen his face make since yesterday.  _ Goddamnit, he’s so fucking pretty. I need to talk to him. I can’t sit by like this, being unable to go around to him, reach out and brush his bangs from his eyes and press close to him and taste his scent on my tongue- _

_ Christ. Don’t get ahead of yourself. That ship has probably long since sailed, anyway. Or maybe it hasn’t, if I can say it right. But say  _ **_what?_ **

Pidge tilts her head to the side, leaning back on the palms of her hands as she thinks aloud, “Well, the surface area of Earth is 196.9 million miles squared, and I’d say the Balmera is about half the size of Earth so that’d make the Balmera 98,450,000 miles squared. One batch Hunk made was about… what, I’d say a half gallon, right? So-”

“Agh!  _ Math! _ ” Lance cries out, holding his hands to his ears with a pinched nose of disgust, it produces a such a genuinely hard laugh from within me that I have to clap a hand over my mouth to stop any goo from going up my nose,  _ again.  _

Pidge gives him a narrow eyed look of pissivity, Hunk looks about two seconds away from laughing out loud as well but is restraining himself on Pidge’s behalf. Instead he smiles sheepishly and attempts to speak academically, “Well, if it came down to that then I’m sure there’s gotta be something like, a copy machine on board that can replicate-”

The door opens and two familiar faces walk in. Allura starts when she sees the rest of us, her eyes are sparkle like stars and her hair, held in a braid that comes around her shoulder, like moonlight in the overhead lights, but my stomach immediately drops all the way to my knees when I see Damien walk in beside her, a picture of well-rested peace in the same, baggy flight suit as he wore yesterday, save it’s a dark, military green. 

“Well, that was easier than expected.” Allura smiles a bit, looking over at Damien briefly before returning her gaze to us, “I came looking to find you all to hear about how the mission went when I met your fellow Earthling friend. He said he was looking for you, so-”

“Here we are.” Damien finishes up for her with a charming smirk his hands are loose in his pockets as he regards the Princess fondly, “I’d totally thought she was one of us at first. I gotta say, when the Olkari folks were telling me about the Alteans running around here I didn’t quite think you’d look so similar to a human.”

If he wasn’t standing in the only exit in and out of the room, I’d try my damnedest to slip out before I could be spotted while his attention is honed in on Allura, but he’s literally standing  _ in  _ the door.  _ Trapped.  _ I look over at the large containment units in the wall and I seriously consider crawling into one to hide for a ridiculously long amount of time, but I don’t get the chance to act as Allura answers him, “It certainly is uncanny, you are correct.” She turns to face us again, her arms clasped over her heart as she regards us warmly, “So, how did it go? I suppose it must not have been too difficult, as you were back surprisingly quickly.”

I wince when Pidge looks over at me with a searching expression, I can tell she wants to say  _ it could’ve been easier if you didn’t fuck this up for us  _ but she doesn’t get the chance as Lance blows a raspberry and waves a hand in Allura’s direction, “Totally, we had that in the  _ bag.”  _

A hand touches the small of my back I nearly jump out of my skin when Damien slots in next to me, to the others it wouldn’t look like he’s abnormally close but to me it feels like he’s flushed against my side with no air  _ anywhere, fuck, how did he sneak up on me so fast? How didn’t I notice?  _ I try to mask any and all emotion as fast as possible, setting my expression into a firm line and keeping my hands busy by shoveling the last of my goo into my mouth where I lean on my elbows at the counter. 

Keith looks over at Allura and reports in a matter of fact tone, “There was only one lower class cruiser, and once we took out their guns they were out of there pretty quick.”

Allura doesn’t even look in his direction, her gaze grows a little cold as if she just got catcalled on the street and despite the rigidity of the ice grabbing my veins with Damien so close I can’t help the burst of low boiling anger beneath my skin.  _ Seriously? With all that’s going on you’re still mad at Keith for existing?  _ Strangely this seems like old news, like someone griping about a long dead neome. Pidge, thankfully, speaks up before it grows awkward, “Yeah, I don’t think they were expecting the lions to show up to defend the planet.”

Allura glances over at Pidge and offers her a small, polite smile, “I’m positive not. However, now Zarkon is most likely aware of our presence in this quadrant. Shiro believes that he is far away enough that the teludav will be ready in time before he gets here, but-”

Damien’s fingertips drag up and down my spine in a lazy manner, like he’s scratching my back without commitment, and everything short circuits, all of my nerves scream for me to get  _ out  _ of his reach but I find myself unable to move, even able to refocus my vision back to the kitchen rather than the white noised head space I find myself in. I can’t focus back in on the conversation, on the  _ room  _ for that matter, it feels like the simple touch grabbed my consciousness and threw it across the galaxy to cope with the horrible frost crawling through my lungs and into my throat.  _ No, stop, now’s my chance. Just move out of his reach. If I can just move I can prove that I don’t want this, to myself, to Keith…  _

_ But what would happen to me later if I did? Especially after the punishment he delivered last night, if I were to fuck up again who knows what he would do? I can’t afford to jeopardize the team again by being distracted, and if I’m too afraid to function  _ **_now_ ** _ … imagine if I were to prepare for something worse? _

Words from the others float across my consciousness, I can’t really hear them, not really. I stare across the room at the far wall without sight, trying to tune out the cold fingers running up and down my back and return to the conversation but when Damien speaks it suddenly rips me out of my headspace so violently I almost gasp for breath like I was underwater, “Well, sounds to me like you guys deserve a bit of a break after all that Paladin stuff. Ever been down to the bottom slots?”

“The what?” Lance asks with a raised eyebrow, turning around to sit almost fully on the counter to look at him, I can see his gaze briefly flicker to me and I’m overcome with such full body shame that I drop my eyes to the counter, wishing I could bury myself in the metal floors and die there. It’s stupid, I know it is, but the simple action feels so…  _ possessive  _ that it’s embarrassing to me that I’m allowing it to happen.  _ Just fucking move, Will, this isn’t hard- _

“The bottom slots.” Damien repeats, I can see him smirking out of the corner of my eye where I lean against the counter like an ice sculpture. “They’re just like those raunchy old age clubs like back on Earth, you know, like the ones with lounges and shit like that.”

Apprehension fills my lungs with water as Lance gasps excitedly, “I  _ knew  _ they had to have something like that!” He immediately whirls to Hunk and flashing looks over at Keith on his left then at Pidge and I on his right, “We’re so going!”

Hunk looks at Lance and then at Damien over my shoulder before he shrugs, “Why not? Could be fun.” 

Pidge shakes her head, “As much as I’d love to watch you guys embarrass the team, I need to get back to analyzing the video we got at Beta Traz.” She hops off the counter as if this is her queue to leave, as I follow her with my eyes out the door I hitch on Keith, who continues to stand like a grim statue with crossed arms and an unreadable expression, save the difference is now his eyes, almost black in the overhead lights without a hint of the blues or violets contained within, are locked directly on Damien’s. As if on queue Damien’s fingertips drag up the back of my neck and wind idly in my hair, my hands plant face down on the table as my gaze fades in and out of focus on the smooth white surface, it gives me such a violently sick feeling that I have to clench my hands into fists so I don’t gag at my own pathetic state.  _ Just move. Just move. Just fucking move and get out from under his hand, please. _ Barely a few seconds later the door to the kitchen sounds and when I look up again Keith’s vanished without a trace, both Lance and Allura, who still stood by the door, are looking at the closing door with equal expressions of confusion. 

“Man, somebody’s allergic to fun, huh?” Damien jokes with a light, airy tone, his hand dropping again to rub idle circles in my middle back. Something bitter and horrible wells up on my tongue like my spit is made of licorice, this time when the quaking energy in my palms screams to be free from Damien’s hand, I can finally listen. I stand upright and pick up my bowl, even though it’s still half full I’ve  _ long  _ since lost my appetite, and use it as an excuse to pull away from him to put it in the dishwasher under Lance’s feet. 

“Yeah, don’t worry he’s just like that.” Lance waves dismissively towards the door his expression is lackadaisical though when he makes eye contact with me once I straighten from putting my dishes away I can see the cautious light and the unspoken question,  _ what’s going on with y’all?  _

I quickly look away and lean on the counter next to him, crossing my arms when I feel Damien’s gaze raking over me, I know if I make eye contact with him he’ll give me that  _ look _ and I’ll have to go back to his side again, so I don’t meet it. Instead I watch Allura as she briefly flickers her gaze around the room before she taps her fingertips to her forearms, “Well regardless, I’m glad to hear the mission was a success, you certainly deserve a rested evening. Now, I ought to return to the blueprinting room before I’m missed…”

“Aww come on, Princess, you sure you don’t wanna come with?” Lance pipes up suddenly as he twists about to face her, his eyebrows raise and his playful blue eyes fix on hers with an excited light reflecting upon them, “You’ve been working pretty hard, too, you deserve a fun night out!”

Allura blinks in surprise, briefly her gaze meets mine and I find it difficult to meet them so I drop them in deference to the countertop; after a few beats of silence she answers, “I’m uncertain if I would be the kind of company you’re looking for.”

“Pfft, sure you are!” Hunk lets out a burst of air and waves a hand at her dismissively, “Besides, the more the merrier!”

“The more the merrier indeed.” Damien hums in response and this time I make the mistake of looking at him when he speaks. He raises a slight eyebrow at me in question and that’s when I realize the situation I’m in, or rather, what I’m about to go into. I’m going to a place that’s like a club with Damien and the others. If it’s anything like what you’d expect from a club back on Earth… 

“Well, I guess if you insist…” Allura smiles a little in an almost bashful manner and if I weren’t so immediately terrified I would’ve felt delighted that she feels included, as I doubt a princess gets invited to the club often.  _ Did they even have clubs on Altea?  _

_ No, don’t get distracted, I’ve gotta get out of this. They’ll have more fun without me anyway.  _ “That’s really not my scene but uh… You guys have fun.” I have to clear my throat mid-sentence as it croaks from disuse, “I should head to the lab and do some work on that quintessence enhancer.”

The resistance I expected from Damien comes swift and sure, “Really? After a rough battle you want to go ‘do some work’?” He looks at me with furrowed eyebrows of incredulousness, I tense and plant closed fists on the countertop, digging my nails into my palms to quell the trembling I feel coming on.

Much to my shock, Allura is the one who comes to my rescue, her arms are crossed and her tone is charismatic, “Making the quintessence enhancer is our first priority, it’s one of the most important pieces to our plan.”

“Yeah, sure,” Damien skirts the counter, I swear internally with cold blood as he moves to stand next to me again to reaffixes his hand on the small of my back and continues, “But you’ve been trying to make it for days, right? With nothing to show for it?” 

_ Ouch.  _ I don’t meet his expectant gaze that’s stuck on my profile, I’m too busy trying not to  _ bolt  _ but it doesn’t seem to deter Damien any as he continues without a pause, “Well, maybe what you need is to let loose a little, have some fun, and go back at it tomorrow once you’ve gotten out of this funk you’re in.” 

_ This funk you’re in. ‘Once you quit acting so strangely and treat me like you’ve always treated me’ is what he’s really saying. Once you quit defying me so often, acting so out of character, so stubborn when you’re supposed to be a pliant branch of clay for me- _

“I mean, he’s got a point.” Hunk offers with a slight shrug, when I look up to meet his gaze I can see the uncertainty reflecting in the deep, dark umber hues of his gaze, “It can’t hurt trying something new.” 

_ You don’t know what you’re asking.  _

I look up at Damien, trying to come up with something to say, some foolproof argument but when the iced edge of his gaze touches mine I immediately know that that’s no longer an option. He’s not asking. 

He smirks at me with a crooked lilt, ruffling my hair before jutting his chin to the door, “Alright then, losers, let’s go hit the town.” 

Allura blinks as he strides past, her ears twitch as she holds her hands up, “Hold a moment, am I properly dressed? What exactly is the social protocol of these ‘bottom slots’?”

Damien pauses in the hallway outside of the kitchen, gives her soft pink and white armor a once over before he shrugs, “As long as you’re not armed I’m sure you’re fine. I’ve seen all kinds of folks running around in there with all kinds of stuff on, armor, flight suits, weird little chicken feather dresses, nobody gives a fuck.” 

“Besides,” Lance sidles up to Allura as her gaze flickers to the floor in contemplation, his smirk is charming and sweet, “You’re gonna stand out no matter what you wear.” 

Allura blinks at him with wide eyes, clasping a hand over her heart, “Oh no, do you think so?”

Lance blinks right back at her as he realizes just how his pisspoor excuse of a flirtatious advance that was, “I mean… ‘cause… not in a bad way, you’re just- you know, pretty-?”

Hunk swoops in to save the day, clasping a hand over Lance’s mouth while giving Allura an apologetic smile, “What he means to say is that you’re uh… the only Altean these people have probably ever seen, so, they’ll just be surprised is all. Nothing to do with you personally, or… yeah.” 

“Oh.” Allura’s ears droop a little, it makes my heart sink a little and I find myself reaching out to her and elbowing her a bit in the side, “Hey, don’t worry about it, on the bright side I’m sure that means a lot of people will wanna talk to you and get to know you!”

Allura’s expression hardens as she glances back over at me, though when she actually meets my gaze it softens enough that I almost missed that it happened at all, leaving me feeling rather confused instead of… whatever I was just feeling. I’m not sure. I feel a bit like I’m going into some kind of shock because nothing feels real, like what’s going on around me is happening to someone else and I’m just watching from behind a screen. 

This is worsened when Damien’s hand suddenly graces my back and stays there, just barely touching but altogether  _ very  _ present, my fight or flight response kicks in so violently that it takes everything in my limited focus to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, instead of seizing up, running, or falling down, all of which seem like likely options for several annoying seconds. 

_ Jesus, you’re so fucking dramatic. Get over it, he’s just touching you, he’s probably thinking about how much he’s missed you after being in space when he was wondering if he’ll ever get to return home… What you need to do is you need to talk. You need to stop lying down like a doormat and being a fucking stupid bitch who can’t speak up when you need to, why are you so immobilized- _

I don’t recognize the progression of time as we head out of the Castle, Damien insistently touching me is like a loud, mosquito ringing, going off constantly in my head and it makes it completely impossible for me to hear the conversation going on around me. I recognize when Lance is talking and that Hunk responds, Allura’s voice chimes in every once in a while but the only words I can really here are Damien’s, cutting through my head like a knife, “It’s been hairy a few times but I doubt it’s anything too different than what you guys face.” Cold. I’m freezing. “I picked up alien tech quick, that happens when it’s life or death.” The night air in Olkarion is so, so cold all of a sudden, I want my flannel from my room but we’re already halfway down the rounding platforms, it’s too late now, I just have to  _ fucking deal with it. You need to fucking deal. You’re  _ **_not_ ** _ dealing right now, and you need to fucking start before we get there.  _

Damien releases me and I gain a small amount of coherency now that I have to walk without guidance, I blink and raise my head to look around me with slightly fresher eyes. 

We’re on the ground floor of the Olkari city.  _ Holy shit, how did we get here so fast? Or was I just that spaced out?  _ There aren’t as many city lights down here, most of them are up above to illuminate the aerial roadways for the hovering platforms, but despite that there doesn’t seem to be lacking of people down here, there are Olkari walking about with great purpose and other alien races too, all of of which I’ve never seen before, most of them even humanoid. In front of me is a wide building of sorts that’s shaped in a starlike pattern, dazzling lights hang along its surface like those pillows you rub one way and are one color but when you rub the other way they’re a different color, except both ‘sides’ of the outer walls are like beads hanging over a doorway overtop of the metal sides. There’s a large influx of people through the open doors, and I realize now that our little gang is in a queue to get into said building. 

“Wow, you’re right, this really does look like a club.” Lance’s voice draws my gaze to him as he stands with his hands on his hips, looking up at the whole building structure like he’s considering buying it. 

“How’d you know about this place?” Hunk asks curiously, his fingertips tap together as he examines every face around us with hints of anxiety. Subconsciously I move without thinking and rest a hand on his forearm to ease him.

He glances over at me with a surprised expression but I find my gaze being drawn to the crowds of aliens ahead us, dressed in a sparkly array of clothes like it’s the Met Gala, and then beyond to the dim interior of the building, it’s bustling with people with retro, neon lighting along the sides like any authentic club would.  _ Please let that be where the similarities end.  _

“Phuong and Amahle took me here first time we were on Olkarion about a week ago, since it was recently proclaimed Galra-free. This is only my third time back since then, but I always wanna try and go here as often as possible.” Damien responds with a hum, he presses against my side as we get closer to the doorway, “Closest reminder to home I’ve been able to find around here.” 

“The trees are kinda homey.” Hunk offers with a sheepish grin, though as my hand drops from his arm I do notice he appears a lot less pent up as he did before, to my relief;  _ at least I can do something right,  _ “They’re kinda like the Redwoods out in California. We got a good look when we were helping to free the planet from Zarkon’s control.”

“Ah, yeah, I guess.” Damien shrugs a bit with a dismissive noise, taking the lead to guide us into the building once we’re close to the door.

Inside is like those old timey warehouses where hipster bars would pop up, tall ceilings and wide rooms, which I thought seemed excessive until I saw some of the aliens within, some are at least double my height if not more, tall and spindly like trees or thick and compact like trucks, but those were few in number; the grand majority here are Olkari and other humanoid alien types who’re about our size on average. As soon as we’re through the doors I’m suddenly smashed with the sounds, it’s like walking through a bubble and inside is this… music, if you can call it that. It’s hard and rough, full of bass and growls like a popping microphone, kind of like if the first generation of club music from the 2020’s had hate sex with viking metal. It’s not my taste, but it isn’t bad, once I’m over the sudden barrage of noise I’m finding it easy to keep my head in the new surroundings, darker, more crowded… then the smell hits me. This place  _ reeks _ of- __

_ Oh no.  _

“Holy crow, it smells like a brewery in here!” Hunk proclaims with a loud breath and a hand waving over his pinched nose as we move out of the doorway and to the side to allow aliens to pass. They migrate to lounges all around the room with sofas like what they have in the Castle that sink in the floor and round tabletops around them, though some of these lounge areas are not sunk in the floor I can’t help but think that that’s still a great way to get a drunk to break their own legs. 

“Yeah, they’ve got this thing,” Damien holds out his hands in a demonstrative manner, but Lance cuts him off with a knowing snap, “Ahah! Friend juice, right?”

Damien blinks at him stupidly for a moment, “... No.”

Allura touches Lance’s arm and when she talks I find her higher pitch and more bell-like voice easier to hear over the din of the kind-of music, “Friend juice is traditionally reserved for important occasions and diplomatic meetings.”

Lance blinks in surprise as Damien shrugs, he breaks out into a charismatic, heart breaking smirk, “Yeah, dunno about all that, but it tastes like fruity vodka and it works like it, too. I heard somebody with a box in their throat call it ‘esir’.” He gestures further inward, and as I look on I see a crowd of what looks like dancers, based on the aliens’ movements at least, and then beyond them a classic looking bar which permeates the brightest light in the place - a soft olive like all Olkari stuff - making the shadows melt like mint against the walls. “Phuong’s got something like a tab running there, I can get us some of it.”

Hunk immediately looks over at Lance with a cautious expression, “Uh, I don’t know if that’s a good idea-”

I start and nod vigorously with a thumb in Hunk’s direction, “Definitely not!”  _ I can’t drink here. I can’t drink at  _ **_all,_ ** _ that’s a horrible idea, I have no idea what’ll happen if I drink here, now of all times- _

Damien looks at me incredulously before snorting, “Since when have you ever turned down a drink?”

Lance blinks over at me with a surprised look and picks up on that implication  _ real  _ quick, “Whoa, wait a second, you drink? Since when?”

“Since always?” Damien throws an arm over my shoulder and I almost curl into a ball right on the slick floors right then as he juts a thumb at me with a playful grin, “Didn’t you know that this guy threw like at least a solid third of all the off-Garrison parties?”

Hunk and Lance both look at me like I just grew two heads, and frankly I don’t blame them.  _ But that was before. I’m not about that life, that was unhealthy, that wasn’t good for me, my body, or my mental health.  _ Allura just looks lost and confused, too absorbed in our surroundings to notice our discussion, I’m pretty grateful for that.  _ Don’t need more than two sets of eyes ripping through my lies. Except this isn’t a lie, I just didn’t feel the need to dredge up useless shit about my past for everyone to see-  _

“But… you said you weren’t about that scene…?” Hunk mumbles with continued confusion, I feel a heavy stone rest over my chest.  _ You’re right, I’m not, I’m not about that scene, why can’t I fucking tell them that? Why can’t I open my stupid mouth and fucking tell them- _

Damien awkwardly smacks his lips, looking at me then at them with an expression that’s almost sheepish as he hums, “Well, you learn something new everyday, huh?” He pulls on my shoulders a bit away from the others, dragging me towards the olive light at the bar as he calls over his shoulder, “We’ll go get you guys some, be back in five!” Without any room for argument we slip into a nestle of aliens and out of their line of sight, I can’t even regather my thoughts to examine my surroundings, the aliens species, the color of the walls, the strength of the minimal neon lights on the darkened floor, all I can do is try to keep up with him and find the words to say  _ no, I’m not getting drunk.  _

I can’t find a decent headspace to speak from until we’re already at the bar. “Damien-” I huff as he keeps his arm braced around my shoulder and waves at the person behind the counter, holding up five fingers to them before he turns to face me with a slightly amused expression, “Damien, I don’t drink anymore.”

He looks at me with an eyebrow raised incredulously before he snorts with an eye roll, “Sure, okay.” He looks up across the bar at the alien who serves as the sort of barkeep, who I notice now is a humanoid with six arms, six eyes and seven jagged teeth-like things around what I expect their jawbone to be in a radial manner, right as they slide what looks like a stack of empty shot glasses on top of each other across the counter. Damien thankfully unloops his arm from around my neck to snatch it up, one hand on the bottom and another holding the middle of the stack, before he glances over at me with a smirk, “These things are wicked cool, wait ‘til you see. Come on.” He steals a kiss on my temple before he nudges me to walk ahead of him with his shoulder, I follow obediently as that outside-of-myself feeling that had been keeping me mute and brainless, for the most part, starts to evaporate bit by bit, replaced with worry and a desperate grab for control.

This helps my tongue to work again, so as we’re approaching the others, who have taken up residence in a corner lounge with a few other aliens nearby, I turn to face Damien a bit to speak over the party-din, “No, really, I don’t wanna drink. At all.”

Damien rolls his eyes at me and pushes me onward so I don’t hold us up in the middle of the somewhat crowded floor, “Would you drop the fucking show? Your friends don’t care enough for you to keep trying to be something you’re not.” 

I furrow my eyebrows at this but before I can press for an elaboration we rejoin the others. Allura has taken up what looks like an exciting conversation with a nearby alien group, Lance is just at her back and trying to listen in but based on the absolute lack of any recognizable words spilling from the two sets of mouths on each of their cheeks I can only guess as to what Allura’s smiling so much about. Hunk is next to him, looking with wide eyes at passing aliens and fortunately appears rather relaxed, I suppose because the energy of the room has become a little more normalized to him.

I get so caught up in mentally checking in with my friends that I don’t recognize Damien’s even speaking until all three of them turn to face us, “Alright, here you are.” He hums, taking off each individual shot glass and handing them to each. 

Lance raises an eyebrow and looks inside the empty glass before he gives Damien a clueless look, “Where’s the not-friend-juice?” 

Damien sets one on the table after Allura, Hunk, and Lance have theirs, lifting the last in his hand before he holds up an index finger, “This is cool, so what you gotta do is…” He runs the finger all the way around the rim before he turns the whole top of the small glass like opening a plastic waterbottle, he holds it upright for a mere moment before it suddenly starts to fill with a bright red liquid like cherry medicine. 

Allura gasps, “This is just like the little toys we used to have on Altea! The dehydrated material is stored in the inner lining of the shell, and by breaking the seal on the top the natural saturation in the air causes it to re-hydrate itself! That’s how it makes it look like it magically appears from thin air!” She quickly does the same with her glass and examines the liquid as it fills, hers is a bright neon blue that matches the Balmeran crystal on the Castle. She takes a sip, which is a hilarious sight to see because I’ve never seen anyone take a  _ sip  _ from a  _ shot glass _ , and tastes it on her tongue before she smiles brightly, her teeth dazzle in the relative darkness of the room, “It’s so sweet!”

“Hopefully sweeter than friend juice!” Lance narrows his eyes at his cup before he attempts to emulate what Damien did, but I don’t get the chance to watch as Damien’s hand touches my chin and pulls me to face him. He grabs my wrist and puts the small, prefilled shot glass in my hand before he picks up the second one, cracking the top just like he did with the first before he hums, “Bottoms up.”

I hesitate. I stare at the glass in his hand then my glass, and my heart and stomach suddenly  _ surges  _ with want. Hell  _ yeah  _ I want to drink it… but I know I shouldn’t.  _ Because you have a problem stopping once you start, you know this, you take this drink it’s not gonna be your last. _

Damien’s glass clinks against mine and when I look up to meet his gaze the ice within my lungs steels in a vice grip and holds them there. I know that look. I know it well, it happens when my brattiness back on Earth went too far, which it often did.  _ This isn’t a request. If you don’t drink, you know what the consequence is. _

I swallow on the metal in my mouth, wrestling internally only for a moment before I knock my head back to take the shot. 

The wave of alcohol smashes into me like a freight train, it’s so powerful and overwhelming that I almost gag, I don’t even taste whatever the flavor was supposed to be until after it’s all over; I wasn’t mentally prepared for it, I sway a little until I find myself leaning back against the lounging couch behind me, bracing my arms on the back as my eyes fall closed to stabilize myself. Large, warm hands grab my waist and I hear Hunk speaking behind me, “Whoa, easy dude, you okay?”

I take a shallow breath. It all rushes me at once, the heat spreading from my throat into my chest and out into my fingertips until the glass in my hand suddenly feels like a snowball compared to the heat trapped inside me, burning to be released, a stoked, faux bonfire. It’s rapidly making my breath grow faster, the liquid warmth soaking of my thoughts like bread in saturated wine,  _ God. Oh my  _ **_God_ ** _ I missed this feeling.  _

But back on Earth I was considered a bit of a lightweight, but not  _ this  _ light.  _ Maybe it was the hiatus. Maybe it’s the alien alcohol. Maybe it’s the fact I only had a half a bowl of goo to eat all day. Well, there’s three very valid reasons for that to be the case, that seems likely, likely? Rightly. _

“Yeah.” I hum, my eyes open and the soft neons of the lights in the room develop a haze, the buzz is almost instantaneous, my tongue tingles as the taste like strawberry cough drops lingers on the roof of my mouth, “I’m good.” 

“There he is!” Damien laughs and claps on my back hard enough for my brain to jolt in my head, I feel like he more smacked me with a frying pan than anything else.

Lance lets out a sharp yelp and when I look over at him I see he’s holding the empty glass with his tongue stuck out and his eyes watering, “Oh my-  _ Quiznak!  _ This stuff’s makes the friend juice taste like water!”

Hunk looks at Lance, looks at me, then at the glass in his hand before he slowly sets it on the coffee table in the middle of the semi crowded rounded couch, sudden  _ want  _ rips through my veins and without a second thought I snatch the glass from off the table and down that fucker just like before. This time it’s easier, I’m ready for it, although the burn going down my chest almost immediately makes my lungs start to ache from the sudden heat-up, like when the outside of your bowl is scorching hot even when the inside is still cold after microwaving it. I feel lighter, like pressure has been alleviated from the surface of my skin and it’s such a fucking relief, for the first time in a while I feel completely relaxed.  _ Well, not too long. But before Keith, it was a long time. God, Keith. I wish he was here. I really wanna hold his hand and give him kisses and pet his hair and sit in his lap, or have him sitting in  _ **_my_ ** _ lap, oh that’s nice…  _

My warm, pleasant thoughts are interrupted as Damien’s hand rests on my shoulder where I sit…  _ oh, I’m sitting _ … on the arm of the lounge couch, he holds his empty glass aloft towards the others, “Now don’t toss them aside just yet! Check it, twist it the  _ other  _ direction…” He lets me go so he can demonstrate, this time when he does it suddenly fills with the bright blue liquid that Allura’s glass had, once again like magic. 

“Whoa, awesome!” Lance cries excitedly, he mimics this with his own glass and downs the blue liquid once it forms, though as I watch him I realize that he’s most certainly never done a shot before, he’s letting it slide up too slowly and the rim lingers on his lips just a little too long. Allura watches the motion with wide eyes, looking down at her almost empty glass before she smiles sheepishly, “Is that how you’re supposed to drink it?” She points to Lance, who is coughing hard enough that Hunk worriedly pats his back.

“Uh, yeah, is a shot!” I reply off handedly, I can’t help but grin as I hear my own voice in the air; it’s like a recording, I can feel the buzzing in my throat from it working to make the sound but the actual voice I hear that’s mine doesn’t sound like it’s coming from me, which is a cool feeling. I set down Hunk’s glass so I can twist my glass in the opposite direction, watching with fascination as it fills up with the neon blue liquid, like the inside of a glowstick. I send it down the hatch without a second to spare, the warmth is like a shock of energy sparking through me that relaxes my nerves and ignites my veins enough that the ice that seems to haunt my thoughts doesn’t have the time to settle, and  _ God  _ is it good.  _ If this feels so good then more must be better,  _ I hurry and do the same with the other glass before setting them both down on the coffee table. 

“Might wanna go easy there, man.” Hunk murmurs cautiously from behind me, I feel his big, warm hand on my back like a heated blanket from where sits on the couch next to me. 

Damien grins and ruffles my hair, answering for me before I even get the mental cognition to try, “Ah, don’t worry about him, he’s the opposite of a lightweight. Whatever that is. What would you call it?”

“A heavyweight?” Allura offers, as she finishes her glass she twists it about in the other direction, it fills with the cherry medicine color as she raises an eyebrow over at Damien, “But I suppose that leaves question, what is a lightweight?”

Lance waves a hand in Damien’s direction as he gives her a pleasant grin, “Somebody who doesn’t hold their alcohol well. Or only a few drinks can get them drunk.” 

Allura’s eyes widen as she looks at the glass in Lance’s hand before looking down at her own, “This is an intoxicating substance to you?” 

Damien snorts and raises a lazy eyebrow at her as he props a foot on the middle table, leaning on his knee with a crooked smirk, “Why else would we drink it? Isn’t it for you?”

Allura shakes her head, “No, not at all. Hold a moment… then…” She pauses, her eyebrows furrowing before she looks back at Lance with an accusing stare, “Is that why you and Keith were in such a foul mood after we left Olkarion the last time? Had you gotten intoxicated from the friend juice the night before?”

Hunk whistles, “Oh  _ yeah  _ he did. He was so sick after, he threw up more than  _ I  _ usually do, and that’s saying a lot.” 

I snicker, shifting to lean a bit on my back so I can drape my arm over Hunk’s broad shoulders, “Hey, hey, you haven’t been throwing up like… at  _ all  _ recently.”

Hunk rolls his eyes and pats my hand on his shoulder, “Yeah, no, I have, I almost threw up like, twenty times when we went to get that scaultrite from the Weblum, the only reason I didn’t was ‘cause having the vomit in my helmet would’ve made me throw up even more.” 

Lance curls his nose and laughs loudly,  _ “Ew, dude, nasty!”  _

While laughing I try to imagine how horrible it would be to have vomit on the inside of my helmet. That alone, period, makes me sick to my stomach but the idea of it just…  _ sloshing around  _ while I’m trying to do stuff, like piloting my lion, almost makes me physically gag.  _ Pfft, wow,  _ **_now_ ** _ I gag, I usually don’t gag.  _ I find myself giggling at my own thoughts, I wonder if I should share it but I find I lack the words to describe what’s so funny anymore so I just let it go, letting myself smile like an idiot. 

Damien reappears, I realize he went and got more glasses because another one is pushed into my hands, his touch is like ice and it returns me to my own head for a second, long enough for me to look up at him as he diveys out the rest. “You sure you don’t want any, big guy?” He asks, an eyebrow raised at Hunk over my shoulder. 

Hunk quickly shakes his head, “No, I think I’m good, though I do wanna see how they made this work.” He picks up the finished glass from before…  _ oh wait, I just drank that, he just took it from my hand. Whoa wait, I drank mine already?  _ I blink and look down at my hands to confirm this and for a moment I’m drawn at how beautifully the lights of the room dance across my skin, it’s like I’m sitting at the bottom of a pool at night with a disco ball hailing high over my head and shining through the waters to perform on my hands just for me. 

“Feeling good, sweetheart?” I blink as cold fingertips touch my chin and lift my head up from looking at my hands and instead I’m gazing into the heart of a glacier, Damien’s gaze is soft and affectionate and for a moment I almost forget who I’m looking at. If it weren’t for the colors… 

“Mm, yeah.” I find myself beaming up at him, although in my mind, growing groggier by the second, I keep seeing the night sky instead of a blued blizzard, “Good.” 

“You look good, too.” Lips touch mine and on impulse and muscle memory I kiss back only to realize that the mouth is cold, unfamiliar, minty when I expected warmth and cinnamon; I turn my head away with a slight push of my hands against Damien’s… stomach? Shoulders. Something.  _ Shit, sorry, I forgot you’re not the one I’m looking for. You’re not who I want to call me sweetheart. Where is Keith, anyway? I wonder what it would sound like for him to call me sweetheart. Or if I were to call him sweetheart, how red would he turn? Probably pretty red. I wonder where he decided to head off to before… I think I’m gonna go look for him-  _

“I’ll go get you another, okay?” Damien whispers into my ear, he’s surprisingly close and when I blink I realize I’m no longer on the arm of the chair, I’m sitting fully in it, Hunk has moved over and is talking to Allura, Lance is sitting on the coffee table to close the circle, Damien gets up from where he was sitting right next to me…  _ how did he get so close?...  _ he disappears into the crowd. 

My vision blurs, the lights melt together and the thundering sound of music melts with the alien cacophony of voices, it’s all so warm and wonderful that even the sudden thought of  _ he’s getting me drunk on purpose  _ doesn’t phase me, rather I find myself having an academic-like debate with myself in my head about it.  _ So what if he is? This is a nice feeling, I like being drunk, this is nice, I can’t complain.  _

_ Except maybe you should. You’re drunk right now, and you didn’t even realize how close he’d gotten until he left. How long have we been sitting here anyway? _

_ Okay, but why would he get you drunk on purpose again?  _

_ Is that a stupid question? Oh right, look who I’m talking to- he’s doing it because it’s easier for him to get closer to me when I’m being a brat. Except I’m not trying to be a brat right now, I’m trying to keep my distance because I don’t wanna be with him anymore.  _

_ Oh wow, look at you, stringing together a coherent thought. Are you standing or sitting right now? _

_ … Fuck I have no clue. _

_ Exactly. Whoa, look at those dancers, they’re moving like the tide, a ship in a tempest…  _

_ … _

_ Lance has gotta admit, he’s pretty uncomfortable.  _

_ He was having fun at first, being silly with Hunk, finally getting close to Allura and having a one on one conversation with her outside of talking about saving the world and stuff, but ever since Damien got back from the bar for the fourth time Lance keeps finding himself avoiding looking over at him and Will as they cuddle on the couch on the other side of Hunk. Mostly it’s just embarrassment, Lance has never been around people outside of his family who do a lot of PDA, and that’s just looking past the whole issue he takes to suddenly seeing him sidle up to someone who isn’t Keith, but now it’s getting to a… weird point.  _

_ Because Will’s obviously drunk. He’s giggling at nothing, his face is all rosy and if Damien didn’t keep pushing him up he’d have sunk into the couch cushions by now. Lance hasn’t been listening to anything he and Damien have been talking about because of, well, embarrassment… but he’s certain his words have gotta be slurring.  _

_ Embarrassment because of the PDA thing, but also the whole thing with Keith. _

_ As soon as he’d run off the first time Lance wanted to rush after him. He saw the look of dawning on his face as soon as Damien rolled up, Damien Mitchell, top of the class - at least after Keith - and the coolest guy at the Garrison… was dating Will back on Earth. And Lance had absolutely no idea. I don’t think any of them knew, could have known either, or even drew the lines of connection. Maybe Pidge could’ve but not with the information she had. No, this was completely out of left field, and it seemed to hit Keith straight in the face. And of course it  _ **_had_ ** _ to happen like, a day after they finally talked out their stupid feelings for each other. _

_ He got the chance to talk to him after he insisted on staying behind on the training deck when Shiro called for a lunch break yesterday. He didn’t actually talk at first, just glared in the normal Keithy way at Lance because ‘how dare he mess with his brooding moment, blah blah blah,’ even once Lance got serious and was like ‘hey man’ he didn’t say much, just that he wasn’t upset, no, really, he’s not upset, until Lance was like ‘dude it’s okay to be upset’ and then he stormed off because he ‘had something else to do’.  _

_ It’s a whole mess, he gets that. But it doesn’t really help that Damien and Will are so… touchy. Well, Will isn’t all that touchy, but Damien sure is. Every time they’ve been together he’s had his hands on him, Lance doesn’t think the others have noticed but he has because it’s just so… weird. Seeing Will with someone that isn’t Keith is straight up a weird thing to see, even though Lance hasn’t actually seen them together or anything, that would be even weirder… He wouldn’t have even known they were like, a physical thing if he hadn’t spotted the hickies… which he  _ **_totally knew_ ** _ were hickies, by the way, he was just trying to make fun of Keith…  _

_ Keith might not be much of a talker but Lance can tell how much Keith cares about WIll just by looking at him. He gets all… soft. Like usually his eyebrows are set and his jaw his hard and his arms are crossed but when he’s looking at Will he relaxes, he looks less like he’s channeling his ‘oh I’m so emo’.  _

_ Not in the kitchen, though. Damien’s touchy-ness was really painfully obvious when they were in the kitchen. Lance was watching Keith like a hawk the whole time. This time that openness was replaced with something like an iron door, and he was looking directly at Damien. Lance doesn’t really know if Keith’s mad at Will or at Damien, or if he’s even mad or just jealous or upset or a bunch of these all at once, but he knows Keith enough by now to see that that  _ **_bothered_ ** _ him. A lot. And what made Lance kinda weirded out was how Damien looked right back at him and kept doing it, like a challenge. They looked at each other like that all the time when he was in flight class with them at the Garrison, though at the time it was really only Damien who was giving him those looks, Lance knew because he did the same thing. But Keith didn’t care.  _

_ But now he cares.  _

_ And Lance is getting a little weirded out by this crazy tension that’s running through the team because of this weird situation.  _

_ And now it’s just getting weirder because Lance is learning all this stuff about Will that’s making him look at him a little harder than before. Like apparently he threw a bunch of the awesome off-Garrison parties - that he tried so hard to go to - even though he doesn’t seem like the type to party, he  _ **_said_ ** _ he wasn’t the type to party. But he looks like he’s enjoying himself now… but not in the way Lance thinks is beyond simple alcoholic euphoria.  _

_ He’s only getting wilder, about five minutes ago he was shouting at people across the room to tell them they’re dressed nicely, he got up to dance too but Damien dragged him back like a parent with a misbehaving toddler. Lance has never seen him so… loose, I suppose. He’s always pretty locked up tight, Lance has only been able to really get a tell on his facial cues a week ago because he’s always on some degree some manner of spaced out, like he’s deep in thought.   _

_ The only time Damien leaves his side is to bring him another drink. He keeps going even after Lance and Allura said they were done the second time, leaving them four drinks in. Lance learned his lesson with the friend juice, though he’ll never admit it to anyone, ever; he’s at a good kind of buzzed right now that’s making his skin warm and his smiles easier to find.  _

_ But even as Will stood up and almost immediately fell over, Damien just set him back down and went to get him another drink. It wasn’t until after Damien got up for the fifth time to go to the bar did Lance think to say something.  _

_ “Hey man,” Lance waves Damien closer. The tall blond turns to him with a raised eyebrow and then leans onto the back of the couch so his ear is right next to Lance’s mouth so he can hear him speak. It’s a little intimidating, suddenly having this guy who seemed so untouchable at the Garrison so close but he doesn’t let it get to him so he can get his message across, “Will’s pretty drunk, huh?” He wants to be subtle about it. He doesn’t wanna go, ‘hey stop bringing him drinks’ because that’s a weirdly confrontational thing to say, but he hopes pointing out the whole ‘look at how drunk he is’ thing will make Damien realize that he should probably be done.  _

_ The redhead in question doesn’t seem to notice their exchange in the slightest. He’s leaning back against the arm of the couch with a lazy grin and closed eyes, his legs are completely splayed out, one on top of the cushions and the other propped on the table in the middle like a young king too soon risen to the throne.  _

_ Damien briefly looks back at Will before he shrugs at Lance, “He’s fine, he’s got a high tolerance. He just pretends he’s drunker than he is so he has an excuse to let loose.”  _

_ Lance furrows his eyebrows a bit at this but he can’t find anything else to say to argue with him. Damien turns and notices Will’s blissed out expression, he glances back at Lance to flash him a smirk and a wink as he backs up, “I’ll be back.” With that, he returns to the bar for the fifth time that night to get Will his eleventh and twelfth drink, he scratches the top of his head affectionately as he makes his way around him like a dog but Will doesn’t even seem fazed, Lance doubts that he even noticed. Yeah, he’s had ten drinks. He’s been counting. Because someone has to.  _

_ Will snickers, drawing Lance’s attention as he looks off into the crowd before them before suddenly he swings his legs about, nearly clonking poor Hunk in the head. Abruptly he declares something but the music drowns it out for the most part, though Lance is certain he said something about Keith as he stands up. Lance stands as well, holding out a hand as the foreseeable happens and Will starts to pitch, Hunk makes a noise as Lance steps over him to catch Will before he eats the table.  _

_ “Hn-k.” Will mumbles, his mouth against Lance’s chest as his arms hang limp at his sides and his whole body weight pressed against him, like he doesn’t realize he just fell but rather Lance just gave him an impromptu hug. That’s when Lance decides to call it; not only is he done with drinks, but he’s done for the night. He doesn’t feel okay with having him out like this, looking two seconds away from passing out. Ten drinks.  _

_ “Alright, I think you’re done.” Lance huffs, moving to sling Will’s arm over his shoulder.  _

_ “He looks ill.” Allura’s voice draws Lance’s immediate attention, he looks over his shoulder at her to see her beautiful eyes flickering across Will’s form with worry, “How long has he been like this?” _

_ Will waves a hand in her direction, once again nearly smacking Hunk in the face with the wild movement where he sits on the couch peacefully, “Pfft, I’m-fine~ I’m… Always like this.” _

_ Hunk, having had enough of almost getting smacked, pinches his mouth as he regards Will’s teetering stance and stands upright, “... Yeah, we’re taking you home.”  _

_ “Whoa hey, everything alright?” Lance turns with Will under his arm to see Damien with the magic shot glass at hand, he’s looking at him with a surprisingly hard gaze that for a moment Lance almost feels like he should let Will go and apologize for touching him.  _

_ “Yeah, think he’s had a bit too much, we were gonna take him home.” Hunk says amiably, he rests a hand on Will’s back to keep him supported because of the minimal space around the couch.  _

_ “You need any help?” Allura asks with a soft, tentative, worried gaze, and although Lance’s immediate reaction is HECK YEAH COME WITH US he doesn’t want his wants to get in the way of a fun night for her. She’s been working so hard, she deserves to let loose.  _

_ “Nah, you’re fine, Princess.” Lance waves at her before flashing his staple, award winning, heart breaking smile, “We’re strong men, and we’ve got it taken care of.” _

_ Allura rolls her eyes at him, Lance thinks its the drinks talking but he swears he can see a smile, but he doesn’t get a chance to mentally dwell on it as Damien maneuvers around so he can set down the glass on the table, “No, no, I don’t want you guys to ruin your night ‘cause he doesn’t know how to handle himself. Let me get him home. You’ve had a long day saving the universe and whatnot, you earned a night of fun, too. Not babysitting.”  _

_ Will’s hand, which was just a limp weight attached to his arm on Lance’s shoulder, suddenly grabs onto Lance so tightly that he looks over at him with surprise, he feels a sudden spike of tension where he holds Will with his hand around his waist to hold him upright. As Damien ducks down to set the glass on the table Will suddenly presses close to Lance, his lips brush his ear and although Lance’s first reaction is to jolt away his words keep him frozen still, “Don’t leave me alone with him. Please.”  _

_ Lance blinks once, twice, glancing back over his shoulder at Hunk to see if he caught what he said but he doesn’t appear at all disturbed, rather he looks back at Lance with a confused raise of his eyebrow, probably wondering why he’s looking at him like that. But there was something about the tone of voice Will used, the sudden rigidity of his whole body on his arm, his face now buried in Lance’s neck that makes something fierce and protective swarm in his chest. He can’t explain it, but he knows what to do about it. He looks at the nest of crimson on his head then at Damien, who is now giving him a raised eyebrow-look of expectancy and based on the outstretch of his hands Lance realizes he’s expecting no resistance; makes Lance wonder if anyone’s told this guy ‘no’ in his whole life. ‘Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he still remembers Keith on sight, ‘cause he’s one of the few people who denied him something he wanted.’ He thinks to himself. ‘Oh, psych analysis, I sound pretty smart.’  _

_ “We got it, man.” Lance insists, flashing Damien a friendly grin and an offhanded wave as he starts to maneuver Will past him, “Really, you outta stay, enjoy the party-” _

_ “No I insist.” Damien huffs, moving around the couch to get to him but before he can take up on Will’s other arm Hunk moves beneath it and loops it over his broad shoulders, making Lance have to straighten up. With the pair on either side of Will he seems so short, even though Lance only has an inch or two on him.  _

_ “It’s okay, we got this!” Hunk proclaims with a big, friendly smile, internally Lance wonders at how easily charisma comes to the big guy. Who could say no to that face?  _

_ Not Damien, apparently, but they don’t give him much of a chance. They drag Will past him until he’s out of sight, through the crowd of aliens partying in the clustered spaces, and out into the cool night.  _

_ As soon as they’re past the doors the loud music abruptly stops, leaving Lance wondering if he suddenly went deaf. “Oh my crow, wow,” Hunk’s voice is a little too loud, it makes Lance wince as he quickly clears his throat and speaks in a softer register, “Sorry. I didn’t realize how loud it was in there.”  _

_ Will snickers, his head lolls to the side and nearly smacks Lance’s as his voice, breathy and dazed, dances through the air, “Ha, that’s what she said.”  _

_ Hunk snorts and shakes his head, his face is noticeably red as the pair get their bearings on the Olkari street. “Can you walk?” Hunk asks after a moment, looking over at Will with a scrutinizing gaze.  _

_ Lance looks down at his wobbly knees and then gives Hunk a deadpan look, “Does he look like he can walk?” _

_ Hunk huffs indignantly, “Hey, don’t yell at me, I was just asking!” Will laughs like he just told the funniest joke in the world, making Hunk shake his head and let out a sigh, “Okay, back to the Castle to get you to bed, mister.”  _

_ “Oh, take me out to dinner first.” Will purrs in a surprisingly sensual voice that makes Lance look at him twice, but his expression doesn’t look any different, he’s just looking onward with a slightly hung head like he’s a scarecrow. However after a moment he tenses, his eyes widen and he gasps abruptly, “Whoa wait a minute, where are we? Where’s Damien?” _

_ Lance purses his lips and briefly Hunk meets his gaze over Will’s head, he answers him with a note of annoyance, “You told us to leave him.”  _

_ Hunk raises an eyebrow at Lance at this new information, prompting Lance to mouth ‘tell you later’.  _

_ “Oh no.” Will whispers, his voice is soft and uncertain and when Lance glances over at him he sees that his expression has fallen, the blissed out, spacy expression he’d been sporting for most of the night is gone as his grip on Lance’s shoulder suddenly tighter, “I’m in trouble.”  _

_ “You okay? You about to throw up?” Lance asks with furrowed eyebrows. _

_ Hunk immediately covers his mouth with his free hand, “Oh man, please don’t tell me you’re about to throw up, I’m a sympathetic vomiter!”  _

_ Lance narrows his eyes at Hunk threateningly as Will shakes his head, he pulls his arm from around Lance’s shoulder and before Lance can chastise him he wipes his eyes. That’s when he realizes that Will’s crying, rather suddenly, like the start of a summer thunderstorm. “I’m gonna be in so much trouble.” Will whimpers plaintively, suddenly hiccuping and sniffling past the tears that he’s wiping insistently with his wrist.  _

_ Hunk blinks stupidly at him and then at Lance, “I’ve not been around a lot of drunks in my life, is this normal?” _

_ “... Kind of.” Lance answers with furrowed eyebrows. He would try to put Will’s arm back on his shoulder but he’s walking with Hunk just fine, so he just lets it be, instead prompting to walk a bit in front so he can face backwards to look at Will as he talks, “You’re not gonna be in trouble, dude.” _

_ “Yes I am.” Will insists, sniffling again as his hand covers his eyes, like he’s blindfolding himself, “I shouldn’t have left.” _

_ “The party?” Lance asks with an incredulous tone, furrowing his eyebrows at Will with confusion spelled across his features. He thought that Will meant he would get in trouble with Shiro or something, for getting wasted. Who could he have made upset by leaving the party? “You’re super drunk, dude, it’s time to go to bed.”  _

_ “I’m gonna get in trouble for leaving without him.” Will wipes his eyes, his breath is coming in rapid, sucking gasps for a few moments as he seems to be getting a hold of himself enough to try and stop crying. Lance has gotta say, he admires him for that. He’s seen a bunch of those heart-throb movies with drunks in them that frequently end in confessions and drunk crying hysterically with literally no control to be found, but Will maintains a moderate level of self control even when he’s so smashed he can’t walk. Once again… Lance is kinda impressed. _

_ Hunk looks at Will, looks at Lance, but he doesn’t say anything other than frown. Lance quickly shakes his head, the movement draws Will’s hazel gaze to his as he mutters sympathetically, “You’re not gonna get in trouble, Will. Besides, no one can get you in trouble, you’re a freaking Paladin of Voltron! You’re like… untouchable.”  _

_ Will goes quiet at this, his gaze grows far away right as Lance nearly trips on the ramp and has to walk forward again so he doesn’t eat it. However, as they turn towards the Castle, Will suddenly slams the brakes, Hunk blinks stupidly at him as he suddenly cries, “No! Not the Castle!” _

_ “Quiznak, Will, relax.” Lance huffs, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows riddled with annoyance, “It’s just the Castle!” _

_ “Yeah, it’s not haunted anymore!” Hunk offers, Lance looks at him incredulously as he smiles sheepishly, “Just in case that’s what you’re thinking.”  _

_ “No, no. My lion. I’m sleeping in my lion.” Will shakes his head side to side in a sea-sickening way, like a defiant toddler.  _

_ Lance raises an eyebrow incredulously, he grabs Will’s shoulders to get the redhead to face him, “Dude, why?”  _

_ Will frowns and stares at him with such startling ferocity that it makes Lance balk, but he doesn’t answer. His lip is stiff and his jaw is set, like he’s storing a frog in his mouth.  _

_ Hunk takes the wheel, gently pushing Will forward, “Look, you’ve got a nice, warm bed waiting for you back at the Castle, okay, so why don’t we go get you there-” _

_ “No! I’m not going!” Will pushes back against Hunk so hard that he loses his grip and he falls backwards, but this doesn’t seem to affect him in the slightest. He just sits on the ground with his arms crossed, now entirely impersonating a toddler.  _

_ Lance sighs, pinching his brow before he looks over at Hunk again like Will’s tired, exasperated parents, which is a bit how Lance feels. Now what do they do? _

_ Hunk shrugs at him helplessly, letting out a clueless noise before he pats Will’s shoulders, “Okay man, your lion it is.”  _

_ This makes Will perk up, enough so that he allows Lance and Hunk to haul him to his feet. It’s a considerably longer walk, but Will’s moving with a bit of a pep in his step like he’s got someplace to be, eventually Lance and Hunk let him walk mostly on his own because his pace is so fast, though they keep close to straighten him when he starts to pitch or lean, which is often. By the time the White Lion comes into view Lance and Hunk are both panting a little, Will makes a beeline through the White Lion’s teeth and into the doorway.  _

_ Hunk lets out a hard breath, “We should make sure he actually falls asleep. Last thing we need is him trying to drunk fly his lion.”  _

_ This was not something Lance had considered, but now that he is considering it he is not liking it, at all, so quickly they follow him inside. Will takes the turn, fortunately, to the belly of his lion, both Lance and Hunk have hands on his shoulders as he goes down the stairs to ensure he doesn’t eat the ground but he surprisingly holds himself upright well enough that he ends up being the one guiding Lance and Hunk to the room on the far right side of his lion. Inside, on the far side of the empty room, a small slab of metal slid out from the wall sits with a blanket and a pillow already waiting for him, Will gets on and struggles to pull the blanket around him. Hunk steps in and nestles Will in on his behalf, Lance helps by guiding Will’s head to the pillow while joking, “Huh, so you  _ **_did_ ** _ sleep in your lion last night. What’s up with that?” _

_ “Safer here.” Will answers in a groggy manner, his eyelashes flutter as the gentle gold hues of his gaze flicker across Lance’s expression, which is beginning to knit up with worry. As if sensing it in him Will holds out a hand and hums, “Wanna cuddle?” _

_ Lance snorts and ruffles Will’s hair affectionately, “Go to sleep, man.” _

_ “Yes, sleep! No going up to your cabin to fly your lion.” Hunk adds on with a warning tone, Lance gives him a look over his shoulder that reads ‘dude don’t give him any ideas’.  _

_ “No flying. Yessir.” Will mutters, his eyes are closing and as soon as Lance straightens he sees his breathing is already beginning to slow. Hunk jerks his head towards the door, as quietly as they can to keep from disturbing him they make their way out of the White Lion.  _

_ As soon as they’re outside and stepping onto the metal surface the White Lion stands back up again, the pair quickly make sure they’re out of the way in case it moves any more but it doesn’t. Now, sitting up like a statue, its barrier rises, leaving it sitting perfectly like the moon stuck on the ground.  _

_ “Alright, mission accomplished.” Lance lets out a breath of relief, turning to Hunk with his hands held out as if case in point.  _

_ Hunk’s eyebrows furrow, he’s only half listening to him as his gaze travels up the side of the White Lion. “Something weird is going on here.” Hunk murmurs, his eyes narrowed as he peers up into its eyes, “Like, really weird. Like, I-think-we-should-tell-Shiro weird.” _

_ Lance raises an eyebrow, his arms cross as his deep cerulean eyes follow Hunk’s up to the White Lion as well. “About him getting drunk?”  _

_ Hunk swiftly shakes his head. “No. This thing with him and Damien… I dunno, it’s just really weird, man, I think we gotta tell Shiro about it.” _

_ He agrees, wholeheartedly… but he can’t really characterize exactly what he’s feeling except it’s not good. “What exactly should we tell him?” _

_ Hunk throws his hands up in the air with an exasperated noise, “I dunno man, but this can’t be normal. Shiro’ll know what to do about it.” _

_Lance purses his lips as he tilts his head to the side in thought, Hunk continues in a compelling manner, “We should talk about it together, as a team. I mean, you and Keith know him better than the rest of us probably, Pidge got a better look in his head than I did, and Shiro’s like the king of getting people to open up to him, so… I mean, they’ve had to have noticed something is up. We can like… you know, pool our resources_ _or whatever to figure this out. If it’s nothing it’s nothing, but I don’t think it’s nothing.”_

_ Lance flickers his gaze back to the White Lion, chewing on his lip anxiously for a brief moment before he blinks and looks back at Hunk, “Yeah, what did you see in his head anyway? Like, I know what Pidge said, but what  _ **_happened_ ** _ , you know?” _

_ Hunk shrugs a bit, his eyebrows furrowed, “Well, we weren’t thinking anything new or anything but uh…” He looks off to the side shyly. Lance peers at him with narrowed eyes and a compelling look until he caves, “Okay, um, I had a dream last night and he was just doing that Will thing, you know, telling me it’s okay and all that. But then he was thinking down on himself, calling himself selfish, and he was just like… so negative, all of a sudden, you know? And I thought it was because of what’s going on with Damien and Keith, you know, makes sense, that he thinks he didn’t notice ‘cause he’s distracted with all that and I mean, again, it makes sense,” Lance almost immediately gets an itch of discomfort under his skin, like the very tension is like ants in his shirt, but Hunk continues without a pause, “And as soon as I thought that he got all freaked out, he started thinking so fast I got kinda sick, actually. Then we saw this weird memory of his and as soon as he realized we saw it he pulled out.” _

_ “A memory? About what?” Lance asks, immediately intrigued. _

_ Hunk shrugs, now speaking animately with his hands to try to describe it as best as he can, “I mean, it was kinda fast, he was in the lab with Damien and he said something kinda weird, like, something about being his boyfriend first then a paladin second, and you know, that’s  _ **_weird_ ** _ , right? But again, as soon as he saw that we saw it he yanked himself out so fast I didn’t get a chance to really digest it.” _

_ Lance furrows his eyebrows at this. He’s getting more questions than ever before, but he’s feeling more and more confident in his split second decision to listen to Will’s request.  _

_ “He told me something kinda weird back at the club, too.” Lance mutters, Hunk watches his expression intently as he recalls the event, “He told me to not let him be alone with Damien. I kinda think it was just drunk stuff, but now… I don’t know. You’re right, this is all really weird. Something’s up.” _

_ Hunk nods and gestures wildly towards the Castle, “Which is why I think we gotta talk about it with the rest of the team! They’ve got to have noticed it, too!” _

_ “I don’t know, I don’t want to get everyone worried yet.” Lance responds swiftly with a wave of his hand, “I’ll ask him about it tomorrow. He’ll tell me, we’re tight like that.” _

_ “I mean… I guess.” Lance blinks and looks over at Hunk with a raised eyebrow, “But it doesn’t hurt to try.” Hunk offers, shrugging a bit before he clasps his hands together in a pleading motion, “But  _ **_then_ ** _ can we tell the team?” _

_ Lance narrows his eyes at Hunk suspiciously, “You’re really set on this.”  _

_ Hunk nods, he lets his hands fall back to his sides as his dark brown gaze, like water-enriched earth, slide to the side, “I mean, yeah. I just uh… I don’t know. I guess I just really want everyone… well… Keith… to just talk to him, already. He keeps running off and it’s just like, I think if anyone can get him to talk about it he can, but he also is like… not good at that. I don’t know, man, it’s just a thought.” _

_ Lance chews on the inside of his cheek. Yeah, he thinks to himself, Keith is definitely not good at that. He’s what his mima would call ‘emotionally constipated’. And Will’s no better. But Keith is definitely, definitely worse. “I dunno. I think Will’s gotta do the talking with that. If he really has an issue with Damien he’d tell him.” _

_ “Right.” Hunk huffs, giving Lance a deadpan expression, “It took them like, two weeks to talk about their feelings on their own, I think they’re gonna need a push this time for it to be done before we fight Zarkon.” _

_ Lance lets out a hard breath through his nose, an uncomfortable weight settling on his chest and making his tongue suddenly dry as he waves him off dismissively, “Let’s just… let me talk to him first. One thing at a time, you know?” _

_ Hunk’s warm, friendly eyes flicker across Lance’s careful mask for a moment before he relents. “Alright.” He gestures back from hence they came without pause, “So, you wanna go back to the party, or…?” _

_ “No, I think I’m gonna head back to the Castle, get some beauty sleep.” Lance shakes his head, his smile is light but his chest is still worming with worry, “You?” _

_ Hunk lets out a breath of absolute relief, “Heck yeah I’m with you, I was so done with that place.” _

_ They talk idly on their way back but Lance’s head isn’t in the present. He’s thinking about all this new information with a sinking feeling in his gut. It’s almost like guilt, but not really, it’s more… heavy, he guesses, like a rock in his stomach. Truth be told, any party spirit Lance had going into that Olkari club has been utterly crushed underfoot by all that. He feels… unsettled. Like, really unsettled. _

_ When he splits off with Hunk and goes about his nightly routine, he finds himself already expectant for the next day. He’s got a million questions, each new piece of info gets tossed around in his head but all it does is make more questions. _

_ ‘Will better give him some answers,’ Lance thinks to himself as he gets into bed, ‘Or I’m gonna explode.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay Hunk and Lance to the rescue !  
> I told y'all you would be sad.   
> but now we're reaching the CRUX of the sadness. Chapter 20 is gonna Break you. Hell, it's breaking me and I"m writing the damn thing. Which is why it took me so long to update because a hoe can only write so much sad before they get sad.   
> I hope you're enjoying the story so far, AND PLEASE if you see some content that you think warrants a trigger at the beginning of the chapter like I have been doing, let me know ASAP. There are a lot of negative, unhealthy things going on right now and I want to make sure that everyone is properly warned going into it.


	20. Rocket Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has had a long few days, and they seem only to feel longer as the distance between himself and his teammates grow wider. There have been a few times in his life where he's felt seclusion, but his time on Olkarion has taken the cake. He feels lost, alone, and although he desperately wants for something to happen, for something to change, he's terrified of what will happen if he were to open up to the others about what's been going on. To allow the others to see him for who he truly is. However who he thinks they'll see is far from the truth, rather fabricated to keep his bindings held unbroken, but when those chains are tested and pulled upon when Will swallows that fear, the consequences may be more dire than bruises.  
> ...  
> **EXTREME WARNING, PLEASE MUST READ: Explicit non-con and non-con language in this chapter, in the 1 to 5 rating system, one being mild and 5 being maximum, this chapter is a solid 5/5. The parts where this is primarily contained is flagged in the writing with **< and **>. If there is a **<, then a graphic scene is about to start/occur, and when there's a **>, then the scene will have included.  
> Example: **< potentially triggering moment **>  
> Proceed cautiously**

I wake up with the most painful, head-splitting headache I’ve had in a long, long time, and as soon as I’m vaguely conscious a massive swell of nausea crashes through me like a powerful wave, I stumble deliriously to my feet and through the doorway as the telltale watering begins in my mouth. I blink at the unfamiliar surroundings, white walls, not the walls of the Castle… I’m in my lion. My first thought is _fuck, I’m about to throw up and I’ve got nowhere to do it,_ second thought is _how the fuck did I get here._

I tap on the holographic panel, scanning the options of things embedded in the walls before I see something vaguely trash can shaped form, I slam it and as soon as the bowl emerges from the wall I grab its rim and throw up into it. 

I sit there for a while, shaking as I heave, cold shivers rushing up my spine and making my palms sweaty and gross as they cling to the bin in the wall. Once the nausea eases, not entirely gone but less urgent, I slump backwards and sit on my knees, wiping the bile from my mouth. 

With the immediate danger passed, my brain starts to wake up, and _God_ does it hurt. Breathing feels like a chore, I have to grab my temples and massage them to make existing bearable, but once I’m able to sit and not be a festering puddle of sickness my thoughts catch up to me. _How the fuck did I end up in my lion?_

_The last thing I remember is being in that Olkari club with Damien, Lance, Hunk, and Allura. There were those little magic shot glass things…_

_Fuck. I blacked out. That’s what happened._

Fear seizes my lungs as immediate theories start to spiral. _Damien knew the place, he took us there on purpose and got us the shots. He took us there because he knew how I get around alcohol, I can’t stop once I start… he was trying to get me drunk._ Slow horror crawls up my throat as the thoughts slide one conclusion to the next to the next and the next… I slide my hands down my thighs and between my legs. 

We’d had sex before when I was blackout and I had no idea until I felt the soreness the next day… So… if… I stretch onto my back on the floor of my lion’s stomach I try to find any traceable source of soreness or something like it. _He better not have. That better not have happened. I couldn’t fucking bear it if he did. He knew that I wouldn’t have wanted to if I was sober and that’s why he got me drunk…_

But I don’t feel anything. I chew on my lip and sit back up again, looking down at my lap with a slight hint of relief that suddenly dies when I spot the White Lion’s stone dangling over my sternum. _But would I feel it? What if my stone just healed me afterwards? How could I know if it happened if…_

Another wave of nausea crawls into my throat and I quickly grab the edge of the bowl again just in time to throw up some more but it’s nothing but bile, my stomach already emptied into the bowl. I cringe once the wave passes and I fall back onto the palms of my hands, shivering and clearing my throat to try and ease the horrible burn in my mouth. _But he wouldn’t do that, right? No way that he’d try and do that with my friends around, right? They wouldn’t have let him… right? Unless he got me away from them somehow. But then how would I end up in my lion? He can’t come in here… Oh God, or can he?_

I shake my head and force the thought from my mind before it makes me throw up again, my stomach aches and hurts from the violent expulsions and the last thing I need is any more. 

A voice suddenly comes from the holographic panel by my head. “Will? You up?”

I blink, rubbing my eyes as I swallow the taste of bile before I speak, “Yeah, what’s up?”

Lance continues in a tone I don’t quite recognize, but I also can barely hear his words as I’m still trying to not die, “You coming to breakfast?”

 _Shit._ My stomach immediately roars in response, my hands are shaking I’m so _fucking_ hungry. “Yeah, in a minute or two. I’m uh… not feeling well.” 

Lance snorts, “Yeah, I bet you aren’t.” This immediately fills me with worry, it only gets worse as he continues, “I’m on my way to your lion now, if you need help getting back to the Castle.”

As much as my pride says _no I’m fine, really,_ my everything else strongly disagrees. Just the thought of climbing those ramps to get to the Castle makes my knees weak and my shoulders heavy. “... I may.” I response enigmatically with as little emotion as possible, before a thought strikes me, a way to get some answers. “It’s good you’re coming… we need to talk.” _More like you need to tell me if Damien and I had sex last night and I don’t know how to go about asking something like that in a gracious manner._

“Oooh, ominous.” Lance snickers in response, though the true playfulness of his words falls flat with something else, like expectation. “I’m almost there.” 

I sit on the floor for a solid minute before digging deep for the strength to get to my feet, and once I do I have to lean against the wall to fight the nausea that climbs into my throat. I think it’s worse because my stomach’s aching from being so empty, and frankly I don’t appreciate it, any of it. _God, I’m so hungry. And achy. And my head hurts and I’m dying-_

Eventually I make it outside of my lion. It’s a bit of a daze, I’m focused entirely on putting one foot in front of the other, but when the morning sun catches my eye and reignites the pulsing headache in my skull it everything becomes that much harder. I blink through the groaning in my head into the golden light and I’m glad I do, because the sight of the horizon is breathtaking, the scarlet of the trees contrasting with the soft oranges melting the skies to gentle blues like an abstract painting. 

“Oh man, you look like _crap_.” 

I look down to meet Lance’s baby blues eyes, bright like the sky in the light of the morning sun. He’s dressed in his armor, his skin glows like shined bronze and he looks well rested. _Bastard._

“Thanks, I do my best.” I grumble without amusement in response, gesturing with my chin towards the direction from hence he came, “What’re you doing up so early? And walking out here?” 

Lance’s gaze flickers across my features in a searching manner for a moment and I find myself balking, wondering what exactly he’s looking for as he responds, “Was uh… I was already up and about, and figured you might’ve needed a hand getting back to the Castle…” He points over his shoulder and that’s when I spot the small hovering platform like the Olkari use to get around the city.

I’ve never been so happy to see one in my entire life. 

“Oh thank fuck.” I sigh in relief as I make my way towards it, it takes a second because I feel as if I’m wading through hot soup that flickers and waxes before my vision, my limbs are heavy and I swear all I can smell is the bile on my tongue; I hope to all that’s divine that it’s only in my mouth, and that I physically don’t actually reek of vomit. _God. This sucks._

“You can say it: I’m awesome.” Lance smirks broadly with a thumb jut towards himself, leaning on the railing after he gets the platform in gear, moving slowly through the air and back towards the Castle. 

I give him an eye roll but it’s half hearted; I’d tease him, I wanna tease him, but the anxiety gripping my chest is more powerful than anything else. Lance seems to sense this, as before I can go about finding a way to ask about the events from last night he speaks up in an amicable tone, “How you feeling, man?”

I chew on my lip and shift to lean on the railing beside him, looking out over the sunrise, the soft, summertime colors illuminating the skies into a gradient of oranges and blues. “Like shit.” I mutter under my breath. 

I look down at my feet, looking for the words for the next part but once again Lance beats me to it, “How much do you remember about last night?” 

Immediate tension races under my skin as I glance over at him to gauge the reason behind why he’s asking. His baby blues eyes are flickering between mine in a manner that I know he’s looking at me, and I mean _really_ looking at me, it’s hard not to shrink beneath the scrutiny in them, but I can’t glean what he’s really asking me. What he expects me to say. I decide to be honest, but nonetheless I proceed with caution. “Not much.” I murmur, returning my gaze back to the horizon, “I blacked out after that third round of shots.” 

“I honestly can’t believe you didn’t throw up.” Lance laughs, though there’s an edge of candid truth to it that makes me tense all the more. _Was I really that far gone?_

 _Enough beating around the bush. I need to know._ “Would you help me fill in the gaps?” I ask softly, glancing over at him with a thick shield for an expression. _Please don’t leave anything out._

Lance chews on his lip momentarily, “Yeah. It’s kinda why I came all the way over to get you, ‘cause I have a few questions about uh… all that.” _Oh fuck. Oh no._ Apprehension swallows my tongue as Lance starts to speak with his hands, his gaze purposefully facing forward and not meeting mine, “You got pretty drunk, and said some uh… weird stuff-”

“What kind of stuff?” I cut in swiftly. I feel minutely bad for interrupting him for a moment but it passes as Lance purses his lips in thought, instead being replaced with trembling anticipation that I feel in my very blood, “What kind of stuff, Lance?”

“I’m thinking!” He huffs, giving me a furrowed, sharp, silencing look before he leans his elbows on the railing of the slow moving platform. “Well I didn’t hear much of what you said, Damien was keeping you pretty under wraps until Hunk and I took you home-”

“Did he take me anywhere?” I interrupt again, my ice cold heart sticks in my throat as Lance looks back at me with a confused raise in his brow. “Like… was I with you guys the whole time?”

Lance furrows his eyebrows again suspiciously before he mutters incredulously, “Uh… yeah?” 

Immediate relief floods my senses and I have to take a second just to let the relief soak into my veins. I don’t get to enjoy it for long, though, as Lance pushes in, “Why?”

I bite my lip. I know what he’s _really_ asking is why is that a question, but I decide to play dumb. “I assume ‘cause I enjoy your company.” 

Lance rolls his eyes but the annoyance seems genuine as he growls, “That’s not what I mean! I mean why are you _asking?”_

I look away to hide the icicles that feel so tangible that I’m shocked when I look down at my hands they aren’t blue and cracking. “Just wondering.” I mutter in response before waving him off dismissively, “Wanna make sure I didn’t wander off and cause an intergalactic incident or something.” 

Lance huffs a slight laugh but it’s most certainly half hearted, most likely an impulse rather than something genuine. The platform comes to a stop and I blink when I realize that we’re back on the landing strip headed into the Castle, and together we make our way to the surface projector, already lying open and waiting on the ground. 

The cool air inside the Castle settles my nausea, and the more I walk the better I feel, which is more like I drank myself to shit last night rather than set my liver on fire and threw it into space. Once the doors open we walk together out of the hanger and into the lounge, but that’s when the silence that had settled around us both ends as Lance suddenly grabs my wrist to stop me, “Listen man, you gotta be honest with me here.” I tense, looking over at Lance with wide eyes as internal terror seizes my veins when he peers straight into my soul and opens his mouth again, “Is something going on?”

I blink at him with faux stupidity, hoping desperately that my past practice doesn’t fail me now, “What do you mean?”

Lance frowns. “With you and Damien, dude.” 

My throat tightens and I quickly look away from him before my eyes can betray me, I pull my wrist from his hold and cross my arms so he can’t feel how hard my pulse just spiked. Lance presses further, I can hear the aggravation building in his tone, “You’ve been acting weird ever since he got here.”

I snap back a little harder than I mean to, “Come on, Lance, of course I have, this whole situation is fucked.” I meet his gaze with a hard jaw, the words fall before I can properly screen them, “How the fuck do you think _you’d_ react if your ex returned from the dead to show up on an alien planet right after Keith and-” I slam on the brakes when I feel the pressure on my palate. _Ex. Damien would not be happy to hear me refer to him like that._

Lance retreats a bit, mirroring my pose as the annoyance in his expression falls away to something different, something like incredulous confusion as he suddenly raises an eyebrow, “So now he’s your ex?” 

 _He’s always been my ex_ I want to hiss, but I refrain at the last second. I don’t trust what I’d have to say if I were to open my mouth again so I don’t, I only look off to the side with a slight frown that works as a good mask for how truly _terrified_ I am. _This is too close. I can’t be talking about this, if he figures out-_

“Well, have you told _him_ that?” Lance huffs, his eyebrows furrow and his tone is hard, “‘Cause to everybody else it doesn’t look like he’s an ex-anything.”

I meet his gaze but instead of working to mask my expression I dig into his. The dark flicker in his eyes turning them a deep mediterranean, the accusatory set in his brow and the jut of his bottom lip in a slight pout - _he looks like he’s taking this personally. ‘to everybody else’._

I swallow. _But it’s not all that personal, is it? He’s pissed at me because of what this is doing to Keith. That’s gotta be what this is, otherwise he wouldn’t look at me so hard… a gaze I should’ve expected, now that my true nature is being exposed to everyone._ I have to fight on the salt building in my throat. _No time for your own self pity. You can’t tell him about why you can’t tell Damien off, that just opens up more room for more questions, I have to shut this down, now-_

I don’t get the chance to as Lance suddenly takes a soft breath, like he’s steeling himself, and the dark light in his eyes dies a little, instead it morphs to be softer, concerned. “Dude, if you don’t like… if you don’t wanna _be_ with him you know you can tell him that, right?” 

I blink at him with wide eyes, a thousand questions buffet me from all sides until I’m mentally stumbling, _why are you telling me that, does it look like I don’t want to, does Damien see that, does he know, is that why he’s been so aggressive in trying to wrangle me back under his control-_ I don’t get very far in my own head before Lance presses on, “No one’s gonna be mad at you about it. You thought he died, it was okay for you to… ya know. Move on. And if you like… uh… you know, if you like where you are now better than before, it’s okay for you to like… ya know. Stay. Where you are.” _With Keith._

“It’s not that simple.” I mutter under my breath before I can stop myself, quickly I scramble for an internal gag before I can say anything more. _Damnit, you needed to speak up yesterday and you couldn’t, and now today you need to fucking shut up and you aren’t, can you fucking get your life together, Will? What is wrong with you? Do you_ **_want_ ** _to get punished?_

“Sure it is.” Lance huffs in annoyance, but he pauses after a moment; again he seems to reel himself in, resetting his expression before he restarts, “Listen man, when you were drunk last night, Damien offered to take you home and you told me to not let you be alone with him.” 

I freeze, my entire bloodstream seizes and crackles like ice in my veins as Lance continues without a pause, despite how this new… _information_ just broke my system, “And you got all freaked out when Hunk and I took you home without him. Kept saying you were gonna get in trouble.” Each new word is like a punch to the gut, my breath is getting harder and harder to hold when Lance suddenly takes a step closer, inadvertently I flinch. He frowns, looking at me with more concern beginning to grow in his expression before he mutters, “You meant in trouble with _Damien_ , didn’t you?” 

I’m too stunned to speak. _No. Oh God, I’m in for it now, Damien’s gonna fucking come at me with a vengeance, he had to have heard, he always knows, even if my drunk self was subtle about it but Drunk Will hardly ever is- Oh fuck, oh fuck, where is he now? Is he in the Castle? He could be, he could be here, he could be outside the door, listening right now…_

Evidently, my silence is the only answer that Lance needed. “Listen man, if something’s going on… if you’re feeling unsafe or-”

The short circuiting of my tongue suddenly breaks as the reality sets in, I snap back with a sharp tone full of blades and barely suppressed, fear-fueled rage, “Don’t listen to anything drunk Will says.” Lance blinks, looking at me with wide, stunned eyes as I wave a hand to the side, “It’s- none of that is- that’s not true, okay, it’s nothing like that! I just- I have a lot going on in my head with all that’s going on a-a-and there’s- you don’t need to jump to such wild conclusions, that doesn’t even make any sense, why would I even say that-”

Lance blinks at me stupidly and waves his hands downward in a soothing manner, “Geez, Will, relax-”

I cut him off without stopping, my voice has started to shake and I can’t stop it in time, I’m running off the hook and it’s terrifying, I’m talking, and talking, _stop fucking talking-_ “There’s more going on than you can see, okay? You don’t know what you’re talking about, so just- just stay out of my fucking business, Lance!”

He stands up a little straighter with a set in his brow and immediate regret soaks into my very bones. _He’s just concerned. He’s just worried, I shouldn’t punish him for that. Why am I sounding like this? What the fuck is wrong with me-_

_It’s better this way. If he’s pissed off at me, that’ll keep him at arm’s length, keep him from digging any deeper. He got too close, he almost had it figured out, I had to shove him, what else was I supposed to do?_

I bite my lip as the sudden rage washes away in the tide of the hurt and guilt. “I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” _But I have to make sure he doesn’t keep digging._ “Just… there’s nothing going on, Lance. You don’t need to worry about all that, I’ll be uh… I’ll figure it out and be back to normal in no time. Promise.” 

Lance’s eyebrows furrow, whether it’s in disbelief or because he’s upset I’m not sure, but I don’t get the chance to look closer when the com engages in Lance’s suit, “Lance? Will? Come in, Lance, Will.”

Lance’s eyes, hard as stone, never leave mine as he raises his wrist to his lips, “Lance here, Will’s with me.”

Shiro continues in a matter of fact tone, “Are you two in the Castle?”

“Yep.” He replies briskly. I swallow on the massive stone of guilt pressing down on my chest. 

“Great. Meet up with us on the training deck in an hour.”

“On our way.” 

He drops his hand down to his side, but I don’t stick around long enough to allow the conversation to pick back up again; I turn and head towards the door, excusing myself with a half-assed monotonous voice, “I better shower. See you in a minute.”

Lance doesn’t answer until I’m almost all the way through the door, “Yeah… see you.” 

I’m vaguely conscious of the movements I go through to shower, brush my teeth, _finally,_ have some goo. It all helps inch by inch to make my body feel better until I feel practically normal, save that my stomach still hurts, but it does nothing for the hurricane of my thoughts spiraling out of control, the eye is the look Lance gave me when I snapped at him. _That was too close. That was too, too close._

 _This is bad. This is really bad. If Lance has noticed, the others aren’t too far behind, especially after my failure on our mission yesterday. And if_ **_they_ ** _noticed…_ I take the shortest shower I’ve ever taken, my heart races just as badly as it did the day after I almost drowned in it but this time I’m not afraid of it closing on me, I’m afraid of whether I won’t be alone when I walk into the next room. Damien always has had a knack of finding me, even on an alien planet he’s like a bloodhound, he can always sniff me out, it’s not an _unreasonable_ fear, though I feel like a fucking idiot nonetheless. _If I said that stuff to Lance last night then I’m terrified of what I might’ve let slip to Damien. But… at least he didn’t take me anywhere. Lance said I never left the group last night, and he and Hunk were the ones who took me home… to my lion, it seems. Makes me wonder if my drunk self asked for that because drunk Will knew that the repercussions from Damien could very well come that very night, especially since he knows where my room is in the Castle._

I shudder at the thought, but my gratitude towards Lance and Hunk is diminished as the guilt washes over me anew. _And how did I thank him? By telling him to fuck off. He didn’t deserve that. I had to push him away, though, if I hadn’t… he would’ve been able to figure it out all on his own. He almost did. I can’t let that happen, I can’t let them know how truly weak I am, I’m already the obvious weak link but if they knew… if they knew I’m too pathetic and weak to even stop Damien from doing whatever he wants, they’d be disgusted. Even though they probably are, but even more so if they knew the extent. But I don’t want it to get any worse than that. This is the limit._

_Right now I need them to know that I’m reliable, that I’m a worthy White Paladin… even though I’m obviously not. But I need to step up and be it anyway. We don’t have time to find a replacement, the teludav will be ready within a few days…_

I don’t encounter anyone in my routine nor as I get my armor and make my way to the training deck, which is both a blessing and a curse; blessing because I’m paranoid as hell that I’d come across Damien, but a curse because I desperately want to see the others on the team. As selfish as it is… I feel so… alone. Ever since Damien got here. I’m positive it’s because the others are avoiding me, after seeing into Pidge and Hunk’s thoughts about the situation while we were in Voltron yesterday it makes perfect sense, I’d wanna avoid all this stupid drama, too… but doesn’t make it hurt any less. It’s like when Allura and I were alone on the Castle, but now it’s even worse because it’s that alone-in-a-crowded-room sort of thing. 

Most of all, I want to see Keith. Like… _badly._ After being in almost constant contact with him, literally, for two straight days, I got so quickly addicted to his presence that now going cold turkey without even _seeing_ him for more than a minute is killing me. It physically _hurts_ how badly I just want to look at him, know he’s here. _Even if I can’t touch him again. Even if he hates me. Which he has every right to._

When I arrive at the training deck the others are already inside, separated into two groups, each fighting the Gladiator on either side of the room; Hunk and Pidge are on the far right side, Lance and Keith are on the far left side, working in pairs with Shiro in the middle watching their forms and calling out helpful advice. When his quicksilver gaze finds mine I feel my steps stall and self conscious guilt climbs into my throat, when I realize the last time I saw him I’d _also_ told him to fuck off. _Jesus. I need to apologize to everyone on the team for at least three different things each, huh? What the fuck is wrong with me?_

“Hey.” Shiro greets with a gentle expression, almost cautious, which makes my blood turn into a slushie as I approach him, “I heard you were sick. Feeling better, I hope?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I nod. The stomachache disagrees, although the food alleviates a majority of the nausea it still clings to the edges, making my hands and spine feel cold and clammy. _But I’ve already let the team down enough, I can’t let this stop me. Especially if it’s because of my own stupid decisions. I need to prove I’m not the weak link._

“Good. Now that you’re here, we can move on to some group work.” Shiro looks up as the other four clean up their fights, leaving the respective Gladiators smoking and ripped to shreds as they sink into the floor. 

Pidge gives me a smile in a wave, which is a relief as the looks the others give me are far from what I want to deal with. Both Hunk and Lance are looking at me with this searching expression, like I’m a dam that they’re making sure isn’t about to burst, and Keith doesn’t even glance in my direction for more than a few seconds. It’s nothing different, he doesn’t even look like he’s upset… but considering how fucking desperate I am to be around him, the only brief view I had of his gaze is like a taste of water after dying of thirst. 

Shiro gets down to business immediately, setting up the same group exercise as he did in those first days of our week trip to the Blade of Marmora’s base. We take up a circular position without having to be told, I summon my bayard from my suit and let it expand into form. It’s a familiar weight in my hands, concrete, it holds my frayed thoughts to the now, at least long enough for me to focus on the upcoming fight. _Focus. Focus._

Instead of holograms, this time we are fighting a league of gladiators, these are less intricate and obviously made to be mass produced; they fall from the ceiling, I count eight as they straighten, _just enough to outnumber us._ I slide my hands along the cold shaft and prepare to summon my shield as they descend. 

Hunk and Lance start to fire immediately, the blasts sear the walls on the far sides as the robots duck into evasive action, closing in on us from all sides. Keith immediately dashes forward and engages one that rushes Hunk from the right, Pidge shoots the blade of her bayard and wraps it around one of the robot’s limbs that rushed towards Lance, lime green electricity swarms its being and makes loud popping noises as the wires snap. From Lance’s left as he’s trying to take out a robot on his right comes another, before it can get close enough to attack I launch forward and engage the shield, smashing it directly in the face and sending it careening through the air. Happy enough that that one’s out of the picture I quickly whip around to find the others; ice seizes my veins when I see Shiro’s back turned with a bot coming from behind. “Shiro!” I yell.

Lance twists beside me, spotting the same thing and calls out, “Got it!” He fires upon it but he’s not acting fast enough, _but Shiro’s too far away-_ Without even a second thought I hoist my bayard like a javelin and hurl it at the bot. 

I’m honestly shocked that not only did the blade find its mark, but it sinks deep into the the bot’s armor and sends it crashing to the ground. Shiro suckerpunches the robot he had engaged with his prosthetic and sends it flying, he turns slightly when he hears Lance and I and briefly looks up at me with a surprised gaze right as Lance whines, “Hey, I had that-! Lookout, on your right!” 

I blink and whirl about just in time to stumble backwards when a new robot swipes at me with its polearm but I don’t get out of the way fast enough, it smacks me in the side of my face and suddenly all I see are stars and all I can feel is a fresh wave of nausea and a sharp, agonizing pain in my nose. I raise my arms in defense and shuffle back on impulse, I shake my head to clear my vision as fast as I can but when they clear I see the robot has fallen, sporting a massive, smoking hole from a shot directly to the face.

I take a shaky breath and lower my hands, looking around to see the rest of the robots have fallen, the fight is over; I’m filled with a bit of selfish relief. _Maybe throwing my only weapon across the room wasn’t the smartest move._ I feel something wet on my upper lip, I sniff and wipe my hand across my face and blink when a stabbing pain erupts across my face. I hiss in complaint, and that’s when I see the swipe of blood across the white armor on my wrist. _Shit. Fucking deserved that._ I go to pinch the bridge of my nose wordlessly but my nose absolutely does _not_ like that, so instead I just press the cloth of my flight suit on my wrist up to soak up the annoying amount of blood coming out of my nose. _Jesus, just a little hit and I’m already bleeding, please nobody look in my direction and see how fucking pathetic-_

“Ouch.” I look up to see Hunk curling his nose at me, his bayard shrinking back into its handled form in his hand, “That looks like it hurts.”

I shake my head and quickly wave him off, “That’s what I get for throwing my fuckin’ bayard across the room, I guess.” 

I turn to collect it only to find Shiro standing there, holding it out to me. Quickly I take it, but of course not without a lecture as he peers at me with furrowed eyebrows, “Like you said, probably not the best idea to throw your only weapon across the room, but it was a nice shot.” Before I can begin to feel any sort of warmth from the praise he continues on, “But if I heard right, Lance said he had it.” He glances over my shoulder Lance, who I assume nods in confirmation as Shiro looks back at me, “You’re not a one man army, you can’t do everything. Remember, you’ve gotta trust your teammates.”

Something about this makes me bristle like nothing else, but I repress the agitation that swirls under my tongue like stale soup at the last second, instead gripping my bayard a little tighter as I grumble, “Yessir.” _Last thing I need to do now is throw another hissy fit like yesterday. They need to know I’m reliable, that I won’t let them down…_

Shiro moves on without much of a pause, flickering his grayed gaze to the others, “That was pretty good team.” He meets Pidge’s eyes as he begins handing out his verbal notes, “You’re getting better with the wire of your bayard, but it isn’t your only tool. Its strength is getting in close, closer than with a sword, so don’t be afraid to attack at close range when needed.” Pidge jokingly salutes him with her bladed bayard as Shiro continues about in the circle, giving the rest of the team their notes that generally correspond with the overall themes we all need to work on, Hunk’s aim, Lance needing to keep his distance, Keith’s overcommitment. Once done, he resets the exercise and we do it all over again. I suppress a weary sigh as my stomach groans like there’s a hole in it, I stuff it full of determination and frustration. _Don’t be selfish. Fucking do your job._

… 

This continues on for a long time, we pause for water in between and it’s gotta be getting into lunchtime by the time Shiro decides to call it, and I’m frankly extremely grateful, albeit selfishly so. A bloodied nose was just the beginning of all the damage sustained from my slipups, but fortunately I was the only person who got affected by them, that and they did their purpose: protecting the others. I got a punch to the gut from switching opponents to body block a robot from getting to Pidge, a burned graze from one of Hunk’s shots when I jumped in front of him without warning to repel a bot that got too close to him, just to name a few. Though they don’t last long, my stone heals them up in a matter of minutes, but they pale in comparison to the beating I’m giving myself in my head after each one. Even though I get the job done the moves are sloppy, I keep getting hurt because I’m not doing it right and it’s making me shake with self-inflicted fury. _I can’t be slipping up this fucking much with all that’s at stake, get your fucking shit together, get your fucking shit together. I almost wish my lion didn’t heal those injuries, because maybe then the pain could serve as a reminder to fucking do better, to focus, get out of my own fucking head-_

“Some solid work today, team.” Shiro draws me out of my thoughts, back to where we stand in a circle off to the side of the deck, drinking from our waterbottles, “Now it’s time to get some rest. Tomorrow Kolivan will be calling in to give us a status update on his operatives and any additional information before he comes to Olkarion.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow, perking up a bit at this, “So does that mean the teludav is almost finished?”

Shiro crosses his arms with a pensive, commanding expression, “Ryner estimates it will be by the day after tomorrow, if all goes according to plan.” 

Internally I punch myself in the face for probably the twentieth time today. _Fuck. Fuck. It’s almost done?_

_I still haven’t done my part in making the quintessence enhancer._

_Fuck. Fuck. I’ve been so caught up in my own head that I forgot, how could I have forgotten, it’s what I’m fucking here for, I have one fucking job-_

As much as it aches for me to run off again by myself, away from the others, my sudden drive to do my duty, my mission, overcomes it deftly. “Then I’ve got to get to work on the quintessence enhancer.” I state, I meant for it to sound like a matter of fact tone but it sounds more monotonous and cold. _God fucking- why can’t I fucking control myself?_ “It’ll be done by tonight.”

Hunk pinches his mouth with a disbelieving tone, “Uh, do you need any help with that? ‘Cause-”

Immediate indignation swells in my throat. “How exactly would you do that?” I challenge with narrowed eyes, my tone is a little harsher than I mean it to be, though it does its job and shuts Hunk up quick. 

Shiro frowns a little as he fixes me with that _stupid, parental, worried_ gaze, “We still don’t know how the stones work, especially not how to use them on command. If you need help it’s okay to ask.”

My immediate instinct is to hiss _I told you I fucking got this, Shiro_ but I’m able to suppress it at the last second; Instead I take a soft breath to pull away from the wild turbulence of emotions trapped in my head. _You’ll sound out of control. Calm down. It’s not unreasonable of them to question whether I can actually do this, given recent evidence… But I have to prove to them that I can. That I’m reliable._ “It’s my only job. And it’s getting done tonight.” I’m impressed at how unaffected I sound, mostly because of how hard it is to keep the whirlwind of a thousand feelings inside, “That’s a promise.” 

I don’t want to give them another chance to argue with me, or tell me _it’s okay if you’re a failure_ or give me those stupid pitying looks. I turn on heel and march off at a brisk pace to head to the labs outside the Castle with purpose in my step. 

My thoughts are wild, bouncing off the walls of my head like a ping pong ball launched from a cannon into a room made of trampolines, but as the afternoon breeze of Olkarion rushes through my hair when I step off the surface projector and I taste the oxygen on my tongue, they seem to straighten out and settle, instead hardening from molten iron into a steel beam of focus. _The quintessence enhancer. It’s getting done tonight. That’s a promise._

When I walk into the labs it’s empty, just as it was before but this time things are different, newfound determination grits my teeth and makes my trembling hands settle as they pull up the quintessence enhancer’s blueprints. My jaw sets and once I can see the helical structure I pull my lion’s stone from around my neck and hold it tightly at hand, staring at the intricate curves I’ve grown to know by heart. 

_I can’t seem to do anything right. After what happened yesterday and today, I need to prove to everyone that I can do this. I can’t fail. I won’t. I’m done letting everyone down. If this thing is what the teludav needs and only I can make it, then it’s getting fucking made, I’m making this happen if it’s the last thing I do. For the team._

Suddenly I feel a harsh, stabbing pain in my forearms, right where needles get inserted to draw blood. I wince and curl my nose, looking down at them to see the cause when I see my lion’s stone glowing like a beacon. Before I can get too excited, _I’m doing it, I’m finally fucking doing it-_ the pulling comes. It’s like my blood is getting sucked out of my veins by a powerful vacuum, my breath goes with it, then my sight, everything begins to fade around me, I see a pulse of white light from behind my eyelids and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground before everything goes dark. 

…

_As soon as Will left the room, the rest of the team felt something like a wet curtain getting draped over them, and Lance has to admit, it’s pretty hard to ignore. They’ve done a pretty okay job of it so far, but after what he saw yesterday, last night, after what Will said to him in the morning… He’s not gonna let this continue._

_Hunk was right. They need to talk this out as a team._

_He makes eyes with him across the circle, instinctively Hunk meets it and when they do some unspoken agreement passes between them. ‘Now’s the time.’_

_Lance takes the plunge, waving his hands with a loud sigh and a dramatic flail, “Alright, that’s it! We’re done with this!”_

_Shiro blinks at Lance with a note of surprise, “Done with…?”_

_Hunk taps his fingertips together, taking a more pragmatic, less confrontational approach, “Listen, something’s up with Will. Like, something serious.”_

_Lance inadvertently finds his gaze getting drawn to Keith. He doesn’t seem to react, his face is a wall and his stature doesn’t even flinch, the only hint at what he’s feeling is the blackness in his eyes. It makes Lance’s chest ache to look at them, but he can’t explain for sure what part of himself the ache comes from._

_Shiro sighs, his eyebrows furrowing as he answers in a classical Shiro manner; resolute, commanding, and unquestionable, “I know that recent events have put a strain on the team, but we can’t rush him. He needs to do this on his own.”_

_That’s one way to put it. “It’s not just that, though.” Lance huffs. He’s finding the words he wants to say are difficult to nail down, his head’s spinning in a hundred directions and it doesn’t help that all he can see is the sudden look of terror in Will’s eyes that lasted only a second before he was able to cover it up again. He knows he has to be right; on some level, something fucked is going on with Damien and Will, but he doesn’t know exactly what it is. He’s never seen anything to like…_ **_prove_ ** _anything, but the way Will’s acting isn’t something that stands alone. Will, in a way, was right. There’s a lot more going on to this than Lance can see, but he’s not gonna butt out of it. He’s not gonna keep standing by when something’s up._

 _Fortunately Hunk comes to his rescue, “Yeah man, like… something’s up with_ **_him._ ** _Not because of the uh… Obvious.” He doesn’t say it, point it out, or even look over in Keith’s direction but they all know exactly to what he’s referring to. Keith doesn’t, however. He looks up at him and furrows his eyebrows, he’s trying to puzzle it out like he just presented him a complex formula and it suddenly reminds Lance of that time back on Arus, like, a hundred years ago when Keith couldn’t figure out the ‘I say Vol, you say Tron’ cheer. He’s not stupid… but he doesn’t pick up on social queues all that well. It’s part of the reason why Lance can get away with a lot of the jabs he throws in his direction without any retaliation, though that drove him up the freaking_ **_wall_ ** _back on Arus._

_“I don’t think so.” Pidge counters with crossed arms, “I mean, of course he’s acting all… fucky. How else is he supposed to act after… the obvious.”_

_The lightbulb flickers on and Keith sets his jaw, but surprisingly he doesn’t speak. He just looks off to the side, all broody-like. Lance used to think that it was because he genuinely didn’t care when shit went down, but he thinks he knows better now; he thinks Keith does that on purpose so nobody sees how he’s feeling. Which Lance doubts is anything good right now._

_“No, like-” Hunk huffs, he looks over at Lance and waves a hand in a ‘dude-help-me-out’ way, “Tell them about last night!”_

_Shiro raises both of his eyebrows at this. Hunk had told him all about their fun night out right before Will came because he and Lance were certain that Will would be too sick to join them, no one can be up to fight after getting blackout drunk the night before. Except Will could. Like, rather well, considering the circumstances. Though he was a bit… unhinged. Not in a bad way, he just kept jumping into stuff without thinking, overcommitting, kinda like Keith. Which is why it seemed unhinged because Will has never fought like Keith. Just adds to Lance’s growing list of evidence that something weird is going on._

_So, Lance tells them. The whole thing, leaving out no spare detail; the rounds that Damien kept bringing, Will telling Lance not to let him be alone with him, throwing a fit until they took him to his lion instead of the Castle, saying he’s gonna get in trouble… But then Lance adds on with what happened that morning. Evading. Saying nothing’s wrong when clearly something is._

_“... There’s something messed up about it, man. And it’s messing him up.” Lance concludes. He feels nice, having the team’s undivided attention and coming from a place that he thinks he knows what he’s talking about is a great way to feel… he just wishes it wasn’t about something bad._

_For the first time since the whole conversation started, Keith speaks, “If there really is a problem, then he would say something.” His tone is harsh and cold, and it draws the team’s immediate attention. He doesn’t appear any different, no changes on his face at least, but his voice doesn’t agree._

_Nor do his rampaging thoughts, tossing over mental tables, punching holes in walls before boarding them back up and doing it again. He’s been doing it for days, ever since_ **_he_ ** _showed up._

_Truth be told, Keith isn’t mad at Damien. He’s not even mad at Will, which surprises him a little, he expected it. But that red-hot rage at a constant slow burn in his chest that’s grown to a bonfire just never reached him. He didn’t blame him._

_Keith’s pissed off at himself; pissed beyond belief, furious that he let his guard down and let this happen. Again. He should know better by now. As soon as he gets anything he wants it gets taken away from him. It’s been proven over and over and over but he still didn’t stop himself when he did it again. This time it was with Will. He’d let himself have this because he thought, stupidly, ‘How could this get taken away? Will’s permanent, he doesn’t change no matter what happens, he’s not going anywhere’. But then_ **_he_ ** _shows up._

_The world just loves to prove Keith wrong._

_This time hurts no more than the last except this is a different kind of hurt, one he’s not used to. That pisses him off even more. He doesn’t even begin to understand it, and he doesn’t want to understand because he shouldn’t be hurting, he shouldn’t be upset because_ **_of course_ ** _Will would wanna go back to his apparently alive b… someone Keith didn’t know existed in Will’s life. That no one knew existed. If the kind of connection they had over the course of two days was that intense… Keith shivers just at the thought of his lips on the back of his neck. Whispering those sweet things that made Keith’s head spin. He can’t imagine how close Will must be with this guy if that’s how quickly things… progressed with them. Because Will digs deep into people and connects with them on their level and Keith was the idiot who let him, and now he’s gone because he’s with someone better. Which he shouldn’t be upset about, he should be happy for him, but he’s not, and he’s pretty_ **_fucking pissed_ ** _about it._

_So of course when Lance and Hunk bring up this idea that something’s up with Will, some kind of implication that he doesn’t actually wanna be with Damien, Keith is trying his damnedest to beat that stupid little flicker of hope in his chest into the dirt because that’s obviously wrong. The Will that Keith knows wouldn’t let someone walk all over him, Will’s never taken anything lying down so why would he with his…_

_He doesn’t want to call Damien what he technically is. It was like getting hit in the stomach with a crow bar when Pidge had referred to him that way yesterday after they got back from that planet. And that just makes him even_ **_more_ ** _angry. This shouldn’t be that complicated, this shouldn’t be so fucking dramatic or heartwrenching but it fucking is. But he’s not mad at Will. Or Damien. The only person Keith has to blame is himself._

_“I don’t think he would if he was scared.” This brings Keith out of his singed thoughts, his blackened gaze hones back in on Hunk to Lance’s left, who rubs the back of his neck as he speaks, “Like, Pidge, you saw in his head yesterday, he got all freaked out!”_

_Pidge frowns, her eyebrows set as she pushes her glasses up her nose, “Yeah, because he was thinking and we were in his head. He always gets freaked out when we hear his thoughts.”_

_“Yeah, but not_ **_that_ ** _freaked out.” Hunk huffs while crossing his arms, “Don’t tell me you thought that little memory thing we saw wasn’t weird. That was totally weird!”_

_Shiro raises an eyebrow, “What memory?”_

_Keith wants to leave. He doesn’t need to be involved in this. He doesn’t have anything to say anyway. But what keeps his boots smelted to the ground is this stupid little spark in his chest that won’t go away, the bit that he can’t seem to get rid of no matter how hard he tries to reason with it, hide it, throw it away, nothing. He still cares._

_He wish he didn’t. It’s that stupid caring thing that got him into this but it just doesn’t go away. It gets worse when Will’s around, even more so when Will’s gone because now Keith knows what it’s like to have him near. He liked it. Likes it. A lot. And that pain triples when_ **_he’s_ ** _there._

_Keith’s never felt jealousy before. He’s never had anything to be jealous of, not even in foster care. He didn’t see how being raised by a blood relative was any different, though everyone around him disagreed. But now he gets it._

_And this is what he gets for daring to like something, someone. Everyone he’s ever cared about has left him, he shouldn’t be so shocked that Will did, too. Well, everyone… except Shiro. Keith’s gaze flickers to the Black Paladin in question, it softens. He left, but then he came back, so it’s like he never left. Keith can live with that because Shiro came back._

_Pidge answers with furrowed eyebrows, “So when we’re all connected in Voltron, it’s like our brains have no barriers. So, whenever we think of something, it’s like we’re all thinking it together, and when we’re thinking about a specific moment of time, or a memory, we experience it just like they do.”_

_Hunk nods with a thumb pointed at her, “Yeah, exactly. Will’s memory was like… Damien said this weird thing, that he’s Will’s boyfriend first and a paladin second.”_

_This makes Keith frown for a multitude of reasons, and he hates that the first one is ‘Will’s boyfriend’ being referred to a third, not present party. There are at least two other things about that that Keith should be more upset… no, concerned, he should be concerned, not upset… about. No relationship, romantic or otherwise, should ever come before the mission. Keith would’ve said the same thing if it was him instead of… well,_ **_him._ ** _And that’s another thing that makes him mad. For fucks sake. Will’s long out of his reach and he’s already thinking like-_

 _They were together for_ **_two days._ ** _He shouldn’t have gotten so deep so fast, he’s_ **_never_ ** _gotten so deep so fast. Why did he let himself do it this time? He doesn’t know. He has been asking himself that ever since Will asked him, ‘Why are you only telling me this now?’_

_Hunk talks on even while Keith’s thoughts churn, “And when we were in the memory we were- or, well, Will was… scared. Like, really scared. And then when he saw that we saw, that’s when he yanked us out of Voltron.”_

_Pidge frowns even more at this, her arms cross tight over her chest and her stance turns wide like she’s expecting to get pushed, “How do you know that? I couldn’t tell if he was actually scared in the memory or because we were seeing into his head.”_

_“What exactly are you suggesting?” Shiro asks, straight forward and to the point, fixing his gaze on Hunk then Lance. Keith can’t help but agree - what_ **_are_ ** _they trying to imply? He doesn’t get why this is something they need to talk about, if Will had an issue with Damien he would say something. He wouldn’t act like he does around him. Which is… weird. And different. The Will he knows doesn’t act like that._

 _But maybe the Will that Keith got to know wasn’t actually the real Will at all. Maybe_ **_that’s_ ** _the real Will._

 _If that’s the case… Keith has no idea how he still likes him. He’s so… meek around Damien. He never would’ve characterized him that way, he never would’ve even dreamed of it, but that’s what he sees. Whenever he walks in he just looks off and away and lets Damien touch him however he wants. And Keith fucking_ **_hates_ ** _that, for a hundred different reasons, all of which he’s pissed about because he shouldn’t be mad that Damien touches Will. From what he’s seen it’s not even intimate, it’s just… he can do that. He can touch him because he’s Will’s boyfriend. And Keith realizes that_ **_he_ ** _wants to be the one who can do that. He wants to drag his fingertips along Will’s back and thread through his hair-_

_He’s spinning himself into mental circles. He takes a deep, practiced breath, wiping the building emotion clean from the slate. Patience yields focus._

_“We should do something!” Lance huffs indignantly, “Call everybody together! Host an intervention!”_

_Keith has a moment where he wants to respond with ‘he isn’t addicted to cocaine, Lance’ but he doesn’t find it in him to do so. Lance has been… shockingly… trying to be a friend to Keith. Which pissed him off at first because he doesn’t like the implication that he needed to be helped. This isn’t some sort of difficult time or a mourning period, he just has a b- him now. But it was weird, seeing Lance behave around him like that. And he’ll never admit it because he doesn’t want to inflate his already massive ego, but… he kind of appreciated it. Made him feel like how he’s feeling in his head isn’t weird. Though it still shouldn’t be happening… at least it isn’t abnormal._

_“And do what?” Pidge lets out a short breath, crossing her arms as she looks at Lance with narrowed eyes, “Is it really so weird that he’s a little fucked up about it all? He thought he was dead! How would you feel if someone you loved and you thought was dead showed up after you’d already moved on?”_

_Heat snaps across Keith’s chest like a whip. He’s had enough. This isn’t going anywhere, there is nothing productive to be had from this conversation. He hates having to hear it but that’s just too much. ‘Someone you loved.’_

_He feels the explosion on the tip of his tongue, he’s almost ready to burst with the burning fire deep in his chest but Shiro beats him to it, speaking in a cool, calm, collected manner, “I know how you guys are feeling.” He says with a gentle tone. The fire suppresses itself to a low boil in the back of Keith’s throat. He watches Shiro with the gaze of a hawk as he scans each and every one of the Paladins, “There’s nothing we can do about how Will’s acting. He’s going to act how he’s going to act until he can overcome this. As much as we want to help… this is something that he’s got to do on his own.”_

_Keith admires a lot of things about Shiro, one if which is his lack of hesitation, but also the amount of thought he goes into those split-second decisions. That balance makes him a perfect leader._

_Lance opens his mouth again as if to argue and Keith opens his as well to tell him to fucking shut up, but neither of them get a chance to speak as their coms in their suits suddenly sound with Allura’s voice patching through, “Paladins, are you there?”_

_Shiro taps his wrist and responds, “We’re here Princess, what’s going on?”_

_Coran’s voice comes over the com next, “Well, we have some good news, and we have some bad news. Good news is, Will has successfully made the quintessence enhancer!”_

_The team makes noises of slight relief from what Keith can guess, Hunk lets out a sigh as he wipes his brow, “Phew! Well that was quick!” He pauses suddenly and blinks, “Wait, what’s the bad news?”_

_Allura answers him in a sharp way, like how she speaks to Keith, “We found Will unconscious on the floor of the labs. His quintessence has been severely drained.”_

_Against his will Keith’s throat tightens, he finds his hands dropping to his sides to instead clench into fists._

_“We’re on our way.” Shiro barks, without a second to spare the team moves as a unit through the halls and out of the Castle, walking fast._

_Keith knew this was a bad idea. After the first time with the disc thing, Keith didn’t want for him to have to use it again. It’s unnatural, he was fine one second then suddenly falling to his knees, all woozy. And that was to make something the size of Keith’s hand. But it was for the mission. And Will could handle it because he’s Will. He’s tough. He survived getting tortured, drowned. Bleeding out alone in space. But he shouldn’t have to have survived those things. Even before these stupid feelings emerged he thought that._

_When they get to the lab Keith sees it first, the quintessence enhancer is just under twice as tall as he is, shaped like a massive car jack. He doesn’t linger upon it for long because frankly he doesn’t care about it right now because it’s made. Mission accomplished, next task. Which is to make sure its creator is okay. Worry resurfaces as he shifts his gaze elsewhere, searching-_

_Ryner, Coran, Allura, and two other Olkari are around the holographic table in the middle through the gaps in between them he sees the white armor and the red hair. His vision tunnels._

_“Oh no, is he okay?” Hunk asks with a higher pitched voice as the team enters the room. Ryner and Coran step away from the table to allow the Paladins close, except for Allura. Allura stands hovering over him, both of her hands are laid on either side of his face and glow a vibrant, misty blue, and her eyes are closed in total concentration._

_Shiro moves to stand next to her, his gaze locks on Will’s sleeping expression and intense worry sparks in his chest, “Allura?”_

_She finally seems to hear him, after a moment her sapphire eyes open and she pants like she just got out of a tough battle, “He… he should be fine.” She lets her hands fall to the table as she straightens and Shiro lays a hand on the small of her back to support her. She’s been working tirelessly ever since they arrived to Olkarion, and Shiro had been worried for the past two days on whether or not she was going to burn herself out. Fortunately Coran had intervened the day before, convinced her to rest. She needs to be absolutely ready when the time comes; without her, the entire plan fails._

_And they can’t fail._

_“He doesn’t look fine.” Lance grumbles in response, peering down at Will’s lax face with crossed arms and furrowed eyebrows. Shiro understands why he’s worried; not just about Will’s current state, but overall. Shiro’s been worried, too, and Lance is the most sensitive to changes in the team. Simply put, however… Shiro has no idea what to do about it. It’s only natural that Will would be struggling for a few days, although Shiro admits he’s not been the best about being patient with him about it, but they don’t have the time to be patient. They’re taking the fight to Zarkon in two days, and if Shiro’s dreams are any indicator, Zarkon is going to_ **_be_ ** _in the quadrant in two days, whether the teludav is ready or not._

_He’s had a lot on his mind. He’s ashamed of himself that trying to help Will hasn’t been at the top of his priority list. But what is he supposed to do? He’s been giving him space because that seems to be what Will wanted, as he always found an excuse to leave, but that doesn’t seem to be working. Evidently. But when he tried to get him to open up he did all but slam the door in his face, which to Shiro meant he wasn’t ready to talk yet. So he let it be. But now, after hearing what Lance and Hunk had to say, he’s wondering whether he should continue with that course of action._

_“He probably won’t awaken for a while. He just needs time for his quintessence to regenerate itself… He’s fortunate he had any to spare.” Allura responds with a weary tone, both of her hands are rested flat on the table. However she doesn’t sound weary for long, as she raises he head she fixes the team with a hard expression, “Why was he alone? Where were you all?”_

_Shiro answers her in a diplomatic manner, “We’d only been separated for half an hour. And it seemed like he needed some space.”_

_Allura fixes him with a hard glare that Shiro has grown well acquainted with meeting, but as she opens her mouth to rip him a new one she pauses and stops, a strange, reflective light flickering in her pink pupils before her shoulders settle and push back. Instead, she moves on in a matter of fact tone, “You ought to take him back to his room. He needs to rest.”_

_Lance tenses next to Shiro and suddenly pipes up, “Why don’t we take him to his lion?”_

_Pidge looks at him incredulously, “Why?”_

_Lance flickers his gaze around the room in a searching manner before he snaps his fingers, “Well, being near his lion has gotta like… get some runoff from its quintessence or something, right? Being closer has gotta help him get better quicker.”_

_Allura pauses and regards him for a moment with a fresh gaze, “... This is true. The closer he is to the White Lion, the tighter their interchangeable quintessences can flow.” Shiro personally has no idea what that means, but Allura knows what she’s talking about, so he trusts her judgement._

_Lance smirks and flashes her a fingergun, “Hey, what can I say, I’m pretty smart when I wanna be.”_

_“So you must really never want to be, huh?” Pidge counters with a wicked smirk, rewarding her a harsh glare from Lance._

_Shiro intervenes with a charismatic tone, “Good idea, Lance. Let’s take him over to the White Lion.” With the new objective Shiro looks down at Will on the holographic panelled table and moves around it to lift him up in his arms, the others move to get out of his way. His prosthetic helps to bear most of the weight making it far easier. Though Shiro hates to look at it, at least there are times when its benefits make its presence worthwhile._

_“There is a platform waiting outside, it can take you there swiftly.” Ryner interjects where they have been standing silently during this exchange. The two Olkari that were flanking them are analyzing the quintessence enhancer with dinging devices and awed eyes where it stands like a dark sentinel on the far side of the table. Shiro is relieved that Will managed to accomplish the task, he knew it was going to be difficult and he’s shocked that he did it, especially considering the state that he was in. His form was sloppy in practice and he paid the price for it multiple times, but Shiro finds that his performance was just fine considering the circumstances. After Hunk’s account on how much he’d drank the night before, he was shocked to see how coherent he was hungover. He figures that that must be why Will blacked out making it._

_Guilt pangs in his chest at the thought but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it as he and the rest of the team get onto the platform, though Coran and Allura stay behind. He can see Coran rubbing a gloved hand between Allura’s shoulders as she leans on the table. He’s glad that she found him, she’s the only one who could’ve helped him in that situation but he also worries about the fresh strain this places on her. Two days._

_When they get to where the lions sit in a collection on the teludav, the White Lion seems to notice the team’s approach and kneels down and opens their mouth to allow them in. Lance takes the lead once they’re inside, “This way, he’s got a bed set up in here.”_

_Shiro raises an eyebrow at this as he follows behind with a slumbering Will in his arms, “He does?”_

_“Yeah. Apparently he’s been sleeping here for the past two days.” Hunk answers with a sheepish shrug. Shiro can’t help but frown at that. Why has Will been so set on secluding himself? He’s naturally reserved about how he feels, but this level of forced solitude just seems to… excessive. Not to mention unhealthy. But he follows Lance nonetheless down into the belly of the White Lion and into the side room._

_Sure enough there is a metal sheet pulled out of the wall with a messed up blanket and a pillow on it, but as he passes by he’s hit with the rancid smell of vomit. He sees the bowl on the far side of the room and quickly pieces two and two together._

_Hunk notices it as well and makes a noise, “Oh that’s gross. Don’t worry, I got this! I’m a pro at cleaning up throw up in a lion. Just gotta… not throw up while I do it… Oh crow.” Hunk opens the holographic panel on the side of the room and presses some buttons, after a moment the bowl recedes into the wall and smell is gone. Thankfully. Poor Will._

_Shiro looks back down at him in his arms; his face is lax and almost serene, though now that he’s really looking he sees that he’s rather pale and his skin looks clammy. He wants to take him back to the healing pod, but he remembers what Allura said, that there’s nothing much that they could do besides let him rest and recover his quintessence on his own. So instead he lays him down on the makeshift bed and makes sure the pillow is right under his head and the blanket is under his chin._

_“Alright.” Shiro says once he straightens. “We all should get some rest, have the day for yourselves. I want us to train a little bit tomorrow morning in our lions before Kolivan comes in the evening for a debriefing. We’re fighting Zarkon in two days, and we need to be ready, which means all of you need to be energized and focused.”_

_The team make noises of affirmation and walk out of the room, and as Shiro moves to follow them he looks back one last time to see Keith hasn’t moved. Rather he resembles a stone guardian angel with his arms crossed, standing at the foot of Will’s makeshift bed._

_Shiro’s chest aches as he examines him, his first reaction is to ask him if he’s coming but he already knows the answer. With all that’s been going on, by far the worst thing for Shiro to watch is how it’s affecting Keith. He’s always had trouble opening up, it took Shiro_ **_years_ ** _for Keith to trust him, but Will was pretty special in that he’s innately good at breaking down other people’s walls. It was honestly painful for Shiro to watch them dance around each other, but he also completely got it; he was the exact same way with Adam. But ever since they_ **_fucking finally_ ** _talked it out, Keith has been… happier. It wasn’t obvious… but Shiro’s known him long enough to be able to tell when Keith lets his guard down. He hardly ever did because when he has, it’s hurt him in the past._

_And then this shit show happened._

_Shiro doesn’t place any blame on anyone because this isn’t a blaming game; it’s, simply put, an unfortunate turn of events. But even despite that, Shiro’s upset that this is just another situation that adds to the mountain of reasons why Keith doesn’t open up to people. He knows it’s bad because when he tried to talk to him about it Keith shut him down and refused, so Shiro let him have his space. But it’s been a few days and it looks like nothing has changed with him. So he deems now is the time to try again._

_“Hey man,” Shiro murmurs as he walks back into the room. Keith doesn’t look up at him, though he can tell that he heard him because his gaze briefly flickers to the side. “You doing okay?”_

_“I’m fine.” Keith states. Shiro mentally sighs. Serves him right to ask such a redundant question._

_“I know this is hard for you.” Shiro murmurs in response, crossing his arms as he stands in the center of the room, “It’s okay to not be fine.”_

_Keith lets out a sigh. He uncrosses his arms, but he continues to lean his shoulder against the wall. “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t even be here.”_

_He doesn’t shift to leave, however. It hurts Shiro to watch._

_“I don’t see why not.” Shiro answers simply. Keith blinks and looks over at him with wide eyes in response, so Shiro continues in a gentle manner, “Whether or not you two are a… thing, you’re still allowed to care about him. You can still be friends.”_

_Keith’s gaze hardens and he crosses his arms again, shifting his gaze back to Will’s form. He hasn’t moved since Shiro set him down, though to his relief as he scans his face it appears some color is beginning to return._

_“I don’t want to be friends.” Keith’s voice is small, Shiro barely would’ve heard it if the room wasn’t already dead silent._

_“Have you tried talking about it?” Keith shoots Shiro a hard look, to which he responds by smiling a little and setting a hand on his shoulder, “I know that’s not your strength, but it can’t hurt. What’s the worst that could happen?”_

_Keith huffs, looking away from Shiro with a frown, “I can think of a few things.”_

_Shiro sighs, slowly he lets his hand drop. “I can’t tell you what to do, Keith. But I do think that it’s important for you to at least get some kind of closure.”_

_Keith scoffs but he otherwise doesn’t respond, his gaze staying firmly away from Shiro’s, and that’s how he knows that it’s time for him to go. Keith’s said all that he wants to say and he’s listened to all he’s willing to listen to. So Shiro turns towards the door, pausing only briefly to look back at him, “Try and get some rest at least, okay?”_

_He doesn’t leave until Keith responds, “Okay.” Satisfied with that, Shiro turns and leaves through the jaws of the White Lion._

_Keith stands there for a long time. After a few minutes he moves around by the head of the bed and sits on the floor next to it. He can hear Will’s breathing from here. It’s shallow, but regular._

_He pulls his knife from his sheath in his boot and looks at the blade’s edge, at his reflection in the shiny metal along the surface just above the violet rune. He shouldn’t be here._

_But he doesn’t want Will to wake up alone. He shouldn’t have been alone in the first place in a dangerous situation. So he waits. Staring at his knife._

… 

First thing I’m aware of is the taste of iron. Second is the absolutely splitting headache, and third is that I’m _fucking thirsty._

I furrow my eyebrows and shift to rise; I realize I’m lying down and slowly I roll onto my side with an unwilling groan. Then comes the nausea. I choke on my tongue and cough, which does nothing but make everything that aches, which is to say basically _everything_ , hurt that much worse. I feel like a wrung out cloth hanging on a clothing line in the middle of the blazing sun, stretched out and thin and baking. _Fuck my stomach hurts so much worse than before. God I’m thirsty. Please don’t throw up, please don’t throw up._

I blink to clear my eyes, wiping them with my hands… I’m wearing gloves… I’m still wearing my flight suit. And my armor. But I’m not in the engineering lab. I’m in my lion. _Fucking hell. How the hell did I get here_ **_this_ ** _time?_

“Easy. Take it slow.” I wince as the husky voice hangs in the air, though it’s soft and gentle it still is louder than the pounding in my ears and thusly hurts. I feel a hand on my shoulder, rubbing the outside of the armor there, and the gentle touch feels so fucking nice that my first instinct is to whimper, but I don’t as the sudden wave of _Jesus Christ how pathetic are you_ soaks the feeling in soapy, bitter water. However it does ground me enough to realize that I recognize that voice, and that suddenly snaps everything into focus. 

I blink and swallow as I look down at Keith where I sit on the metal sheet. He’s kneeling in front of me with a worried flicker across his violet gaze and they’re so beautiful I immediately find myself relaxing and getting lost in them, it eases the overall agony of existence I’m experiencing at the moment. My mind is sluggish, it’s still catching up to the current state of things and it shows in my slurred words, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and he doesn’t answer, his hand detracts from my shoulder and I almost immediately ache from the loss of contact. He brings up something from underneath my makeshift bed and hands it to me, I blink for a second before I feel the moisture and realize it’s one of the waterbottles from the training deck. 

“Oh thank God.” I huff in absolute relief and immediately crack the top and chug that fucker like my life depends on it, though that quickly bites me in the ass as I start choking and coughing. 

“I told you to take it slow.” Keith huffs with a hint of annoyance, it’s so classically Keith that despite how damn near every inch of my body hurts I find myself smiling. 

“What? I’m-” I have to stop and cough for a few seconds before I can continue, “I’m _thirsty.”_

Keith shakes his head and lets out a soft chuckle and the sound is literal music to my ears. Once the ache in my lungs begins to settle, my mind finally gets into gear and thoughts start to chug out of the station and build momentum and speed. 

“How did I get here? Where is everyone?” I mumble after a moment, taking a _smaller_ sip of water and taking a breath before I can ask more, “I was in the lab, making the… Did I make it? Is the stupid thing made?” _Please tell me I did my job. Please tell me I did it, I can’t continue to be an utter failure-_

Keith nods, “Yeah, you did. You’re lucky Allura found you… you’ve been out for hours.” 

 _Shit._ “What time is it?” I ask while rubbing my eyes, tapping the wrist of my armor to answer my own question, _7pm. Damnit. I probably missed whatever training Shiro has in line for us-_ I sigh and hang my shoulders, “I assume you guys are done with training?” 

Keith shook his head, “Shiro let us all go after Allura called us in. I don’t know where they are now.” 

“Oh.” I frown, my hands clench and unclench in my lap. My initial thought is to apologize for ruining the day’s schedule because I’m an idiot but then I beat that thought into the dirt because _no way I’m special enough they would change all that for me, don’t be so conceited._

Now, looking at Keith, his elbows rested on his knees where he squats before me, his hair’s wild and curled under his jawline and his bangs hang in his pretty deep violet gaze, I find myself relaxing and suddenly _aching_ to touch him. But then I start to thinking. The others were released, hours ago apparently, and Keith is alone. So… 

“Were you waiting for me all this time?” I ask in a soft voice. It’s easier to meet his eyes than it is usually, I think I just missed looking into them so much that my discomfort with eye contact came entirely secondary. 

Keith blinks at me for a moment before he clears his throat, looking off to the side as his ears start to turn scarlet, “Um… yeah. I mean, I had nowhere else I needed to be, so… Yeah.”

My chest spasms and aches, I have to swallow to suppress the fact that the mere sentiment makes me want to start crying, but that’s _a little over dramatic so let’s fucking not._ But… he hasn’t been treating me differently. Ever since… _That’s right. Damien._

_Fuck, I’d forgotten. Shit. But… I have him alone right now, he’s here and has been waiting for me to wake up, maybe… Now’s the time._

I let out a shaky breath that draws Keith’s gaze back to mine, I reach out to him and touch his forearm resting on his knee, “Keith, we _really_ need to talk-” 

Like the drop of a dime Keith stands up. I blink as he pulls out of my reach and my heart clambers into my throat in the worst of ways when I see the shutdown in his expression and the blackness that settles over his gaze. “I haven’t got anything to say.” 

I blink with hurt swelling in my chest, “Keith…!” I move to stand but the movement almost immediately makes me waver, my vision swims and I have to support myself on the bed behind me. To my surprise Keith balks and steps forward, grabbing my shoulders to steady me but once I do he lets me go again, which _fucking sucks._ I’ve never ached for someone to touch me so badly before in such a stupidly little way, but it’s there, it’s present, I think if I hugged Keith I would probably sob because of how desperate I am. 

I don’t get to dwell on the feelings long as Keith lets out a hard breath, “It’s fine, alright?” I frown, blinking at him without comprehension and that prompts him to elaborate in a low, frustrated growl, but I can’t tell if that frustration is aimed at me or not, “You don’t have to… I’m not gonna get in the way. So… don’t feel guilty or like you have to apologize or something because… I’m not gonna get between you… two.” He hitches on his words like each one stabs him in the throat and it’s like successive punches into my chest. As soon as he’s done he lets out a hard breath, his eyebrows are furrowed and his expression morphs from a careful stone wall to a twist of anger before he turns away and storms out of the room. 

“Keith…!” I huff and try to grab his wrist to stop him but he escapes just in time, even when he’s out of sight I shout after him, _“Keith!”_

I stand in the doorway, leaning on the wall, and as soon as I inhale it’s like sucking in breath on a cold day, the icy air fills my lungs and solidifies and I’ve never felt such an ache of loneliness in my _entire life._

_I’m not gonna get between you two._

_No. No, no, no, no, you’re not in the way, you’re never- you-..._

_… Maybe it’s for the best._ I sniffle as tears start to flow, I wipe my eyes quickly to suppress them as I lean my back against the doorframe. _I didn’t want to have to talk about it. I’d have to tell him everything, which is impossible because that’s just…_

But then I start thinking about my conversation with Lance, seeing the hard line in his gaze that cut into my core… _I’ve been so beyond selfish for the past two days._ **_Beyond_** _selfish._ I was too scared to face Keith because of the questions posed… and even despite what he said, I can’t let that stop me anymore. _I owe it to him to at least… I have to tell him. I can’t live with this anymore, he has to know that I don’t want Damien, frankly I hate him-_

The realization hits me like a freight train. _I hate him. I hate Damien._

This isn’t new. For those few months after he died and I tried to desperately get my shit together I cursed his name and blamed him for all the hurt I had but with him here again, that feeling hasn’t sated, rather it intensified. _I hate him. I hate how much control he has over me, I hate how subject to his whims I am, I hate how he’s driven a wedge between me and my teammates, my_ **_friends_ ** _, a group of people I’ve never felt such a tight connection to as these._

_If I can tell anyone… I have to tell Keith. If I can trust anyone, I trust Keith. Even if he won’t have me after this whole mess, I just need for him to know, I can’t let the ball sit in my court anymore just because I’m afraid of the ball smacking me back in the face._

_I have to catch him before he slips away._

I steel my shaking limbs and push through the nausea and rush as fast as they’ll carry me out of my lion. 

It’s nighttime now, the streets are dark and the lights of the city illuminate the construction sight as I haul ass along the metal walkways. I don’t see him immediately, but as I head towards the Castle I spot him on one of the ramps leading upwards, the illuminated white of his suit reflecting off of the city lights like the north star for me to follow. I grow closer, my breath is coming harder and it feels like my legs are about to give out but _I’m not letting you run away, get back here you asshole._

I catch up to him on one of the balconies between ramps. _“Keith!”_ I bark. 

He blinks in surprise and turns towards me with wide eyes, first shocked then worried, “What the- you shouldn’t be- you need to be resting-”

“Well then don’t fucking run away from me next time.” I huff in response. 

Keith’s brow sets and his expression stone walls, “I told you I don’t have anything else to say.”

Although it aches to see the hard lack of light in his eyes, I forge on with the words that I’d accumulated along my trek to distract myself from the agony of moving, “Well maybe you don’t, but I do. So just fucking- you don’t have to say anything, but at least let me.” I speak with my hands in desperate movements, grasping at air when I want to be shaking Keith’s shoulders, grabbing his hands, but I don’t, I know he’ll just pull away. To my surprise he doesn’t move, though he doesn’t react. He merely stands with crossed arms and without expression, waiting. _Oh thank God._

Now that I’m here, suddenly my words fail me. My throat constricts and my hands start to tremble _but I can’t let this chance slip away. I have to tell him… but start small and get bigger, so as not to overload him. Oh God what if this is a bad idea-_ “I don’t- I’m sorry it took me so long to talk to you.” I begin while taking a steeling breath, it’s taking all of my effort to keep my voice even and my words from tripping, “I was scared that you already hated me and avoided you because I was scared to see that and I just… Fuck, I’m sorry, it sounds like I’m making excuses- there are no excuses, that was shitty and I should’ve dealt with it like an adult, and I’m sorry about that. You deserve better than that.” 

Keith doesn’t even blink, he merely watches me with a closet expression, though the more the words come out the deeper the furrow in his brow seems to go. “I’m sorry I never brought up D-... Damien. We dated for a six months on Earth before he went up and disappeared, and… I thought he _died._ I thought he was _dead._ But that’s…” Keith’s gaze is hard as obsidian and I realize how this must sound. _This isn’t the turn of phrase I wanted to use. I need him to know the truth. I hate Damien. I hate him._ “... Listen, I know this might sound really fucked up, but I wasn’t sad about it.” 

This makes the scowl Keith had been trying to hide evaporate, rather his eyebrows raise and he blinks. My voice is shaking now. _I’ve never told anyone this. I’ve never told anyone this, I’m so fucking scared but I need you to know so you at least know why I’m like this, why I’m such a fucking coward-_ “He was the first and last boyfriend I’ve ever had, and it was for a reason.” I swallow as I try to settle my nerves, my breath is coming erratically and it’s taking everything in my power and concentration to not shamble to pieces as the words flow, “ _He_ is the reason why I was so scared to tell you how I felt about you. When I told you I twist people-... I twisted him first. And the person I made him to be isn’t a good one, Keith. It’s selfish of me and I know i-it’s so fucked up that I feel this way because of all that’s happened to him but I don’t… I-I d-don’t want to be with… him.” I’m so close to crying. I’m a drop of a hat away from crying to the point I have to take a steadying breath to recollect myself. Keith’s expression has changed. It’s more open, confused, rather than hard and stony. 

I want to say more, but my words die in my throat. I know I can’t open my mouth again without the waterworks coming on, so I try with all of my might to keep it under wraps when Keith suddenly speaks in a soft voice, “Then why haven’t you said anything?” I look at him with wide eyes and he meets my gaze evenly. His tone is raw, open, confused. 

“Because I’m scared.” I mutter, crossing my arms with another shaking breath. _Hold yourself together. You’re going to look more weak and pathetic than you already do if you don’t fucking quit._

“Of what?” Keith presses, but as my silence persists when my emotions strangle me this returns the frown to Keith’s face. “I don’t get it. Why are you telling me this now? Why haven’t you-” He growls suddenly as his crossed arms drop, the frustration that was an undercurrent in his voice back in my lion is now bubbling forth like the lip of a volcano, “If you really didn’t want to be with him, why haven’t you _told him_ that? Why do you let him-” He purposefully drops off the sentence there as I take a step back, hugging my arms close to my chest. 

 _This is bad. This is bad. I can’t say it outright. Oh God, this was so fucking stupid, I’m going to sound so fucking stupid._ “I-it’s hard to explain-” I stammer, but before I can even begin Keith growls, “Well, why don’t you? Why _haven’t_ you?” 

I look away from him and try to still the rapid beating in my heart, my gaze fades beyond him but when my eyes focus I feel the closest thing to absolute terror in my entire life. 

Partially hidden from view, leaning on the railing on the ramp above where Keith and I stand is Damien. Looking straight at me with absolutely no expression.

I swallow on nothing but sea water and ice, my mouth fills with cotton and my brain is filled with instantaneous white noise like constant ozone crackling on a broken microphone. Keith lets out a sigh before he speaks again with a husky undertone of something I can’t understand, I barely hear it over the pounding drums in my ears, “If you really cared then why are you letting your fear hold you back?” 

Something hot and wet stabs me in the chest, but before I can even react to it, noticing my distracted gaze, Keith turns to follow my eyes, he spots Damien above us. Now that his presence is known he smiles amicably and waves before he shouts, like he’s much farther than he is, “How’s it?” 

Keith looks back at me with such a hard light of anger in his eyes that I physically balk. My jaw is locked with ice, my tongue is a frozen river and my blood is coated in frost, with my lack of _anything_ Keith lets out a frustrated growl, turns on heel, and leaves. 

My feet are cemented to the metal and turning ice cold as the seconds tick on. I swallow, fear makes my entire chest freeze and tremble as I slowly look back up at Damien. He merely raises an eyebrow at me with a look of slight amusement before he pulls away from the bar and disappears from sight. 

_Oh my God._

_Oh my God._

_No, no, no, no, no, no._

_This is the worst timeline. Oh my God. I finally tried to talk to him, to get Keith to understand, but I fucked failed. I knew this would happen. ‘Why are you letting fear hold you back?’ He’s right, why am I? Why am I afraid? I shouldn’t be afraid to just talk to Damien about all this. But I’m scared. Holy fuck I’ve never been so scared._

_And Damien heard._

_I don’t know how much of it, but that doesn’t matter. Damien’s brilliant. Even if all he heard was what Keith said, he could extrapolate upon it in seconds and then it’s all over. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

_I never once actually cheated on him when we were together, but he would get crazy possessive nonetheless, I recognize that now. And he hasn’t seemed to have changed in that manner. Now seeing that… hearing that… He has to have figured out that I was with Keith. Oh my God. Oh my God._

_He’s gonna fucking kill me._

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know at all what I _can_ do except avoid him like my life depends on it. He walked away, though, which means he doesn’t plan on punishing me now, but I’ve never been so scared in my life at what giving him time to plan will mean. _I just have to make sure that he can’t find me. Simple as that._

I take a steadying breath to calm myself down. _It’s alright. It’s gonna be okay. Okay. It’s nighttime now, so everyone should be getting to sleep. I’ll just head back to my lion…_

But I’m not tired. I’m the opposite of tired, I haven’t been this wide awake so suddenly since Zarkon suddenly showed up last time we were on Olkarion. _But I can’t stay out here long. I’m safe in my lion, I’ll go there, but I can’t sleep in my armor, my spare set is already in there. I need to put this armor back in my armory then get clothes from my room before I can head back over. Focus on that. Focus on that. Not on anything else, just this. Armor. Room. Clothes. Silver._

It works with mild success. My heart won’t stop pounding and the sickening pressure around my heart makes my breathing come faster but I’m still cognizant, which is what drives me to my hanger, out of my armor, and grabbing leftover pants to head back to my room for clean clothes to sleep in. The shock of it leaves my hands shaking, everything takes twice as long as usual, when I open my door and shut it behind me the silence inside makes my ears ring. _I’m going to go insane. God I wish I had music, I wish I had my guitar, I wish I had something to keep me from going apeshit-_

I take a shaky breath as I stand in my room, looking around with bare consciousness of my own presence before I see my flannel hanging on a knob of my dresser. I haven’t worn it much recently but seeing it now I’m suddenly aching to have its familiar warmth, I snag it and pull it on before I start to dig through my drawers for clothes. It helps with the cold, my fingertips feel frostbitten and my toes are numb and once I’ve grabbed a fresh change of clothes for tomorrow and pajamas for the night I rub my hands together to warm them up and then check the time. It’s past ten at night. _Now everyone’s definitely asleep. I should be quiet as I go…_

I collect the clothes and head to my door, right as I open it to walk out I jump so hard I drop them to the floor when a shadow appears before me, “What the- Dami-”

He doesn’t give me a chance to speak, he pushes his way in and shuts the door behind him, locks it, _oh no,_ I stagger backwards but before I know what to do his hand’s on my throat and my back is smacked against the wall next to my door. I grab his wrists and kick out at him on reflex, he pushes against my throat hard in response and it rips a gasp out of my lungs. 

“What the hell has gotten into you?” He hisses, I hold his wrist in both hands to try and alleviate the pressure but all it does is make him bear down on my throat harder, I wheeze and fight for air as he continues, “You _loose slut,_ how long has that been going on?”

I grimace when I peer into the glaciers in his eyes, he’s so cold to the touch I feel like I’m being frozen into the wall. “What’re y-you talking-”

“Don’t play stupid with me.” He gets in close to my face and I close my eyes to keep from drowning in his, his voice is dark and _furious_ as it floats through my hair and festers in my head, “I _said_ how _long_ have you been _fucking_ that _half-Galra bastard?”_

Despite the absolute terror that clings to my rugged breath, something hot touches the roof of my mouth and my eyes snap open to zone in on Damien. A _pissed_ Damien. As if the eye contact was a challenge he suddenly tightens his grip on my throat and I whimper as he snarls, “I expect you to answer me when I ask you something, you _lying bitch.”_

I push on Damien’s arm as I struggle to breathe, “I-I didn’t- He’s-”

Damien scoffs, “You’re as bad at lying as you are at flying that cat.” Damien snarls, it sends a bolt of fear down my spine as his other hand, curled into a fist, rests on the wall next to my head, “Tell me something. When you thought I ‘died’, did you even wait a _minute_ before you slithered your way into every bed in Texas?” 

I squeeze my eyes shut, my every muscle screams and joins the clamor in my head that only intensifies when Damien all but throttles me, “You’re a lot of things, angel, but being a monsterfucker didn’t seem to crack the top ten list of things I’d thought you were. I thought you at least had _standards_. Or are you just so horned up that you can’t keep it in your pants?” 

A low burn fire starts in the back of my throat. I have no idea where this courage comes from, or how I’m able to gargle the words out, but they hang in the air nonethesame with a strangled aura, “Don’t talk about him like that.” 

Damien cocks an eyebrow at me and if I wasn’t so totally screwed before, I _definitely_ am now, the simple look sends a shock of terror straight down my spine. “Oh for fucks sake,” Damien snorts and to my surprise his hand drops from my throat. I take a shaking breath that doesn’t last long as he closes the distance until he’s pressed right up against me, pinning me to the wall with his entire body as he growls, “You think you like him, then? More than me?” 

 _Yes._ I want to scream it, right in his face, which is the newest feeling I’ve ever encountered, but the fear persists, lingers on my tongue where the fire has not yet reached. 

My silence seems to answer his question for him, as Damien rolls his eyes and scoffs, “Well, I wouldn’t get your hopes up, darling.” 

I blink at him stupidly. Of all the things I thought he might say, I didn’t think that would be one of them, I puzzle over it for a beat but Damien curls a gentle hand through my hair and cuts off my thoughts as he hums in a low tone, “Maybe he liked you back at one point. I see it every time he’s around. He’s fun to play with like that.” He smirks as if his words amuse him, making me more and more confused as he purrs, “But not anymore. No one wants leftovers. Especially not pathetic, pitiful ones like you. Even a half breed has better standards than that.”

Burning anger swamps through the ice clutching my being and melts it away as I glare at him with every ounce of hatred in my spine, “Stop _talking_ about him like th-”

His grip on my hair tightens as he pins my head to the wall, I suppress a noise of terror better fit for animals as he bares his teeth, “I’ll talk however I damn well please.” His grip doesn’t loosen, I jump when I feel his teeth on my jaw, “You seriously think that you’re better suited for anybody but me? That anybody else _wants_ you?” 

He sinks his teeth into the side of my neck and I flinch, _no, absolutely not, I don’t want-_ without warning I plant my hands on his chest and push. I almost immediately regret this action as he grabs my wrists and slams them on the wall over my head, I struggle only for a second until his other hand wraps back around my throat and squeezes so hard I see stars and hear nothing but the blood in my ears. 

“What the hell has gotten into you?” He huffs in genuine disbelief, his grip on my wrists tighten to hold me still as I fight for air, wheezing, but he doesn’t seem to otherwise notice as he continues to speak, “I tried to be nice about this, I didn’t confront you then and there and _embarrass_ you, but I could have. I could have marched down there and told Keith _all about_ our relationship down to the sex in the bathroom at _Julie’s,_ but I didn’t. But maybe I should have, since you were so eager to tell him all about it yourself. I’m sure he would’ve appreciated the variety of perspective.”

I shut my eyes again as his grip laxes so I can breathe a bit, as soon as I have enough air to clear the black spots from behind my eyes I whimper, “Stop it-”

He reapplies pressure and I choke, his voice drops to a dangerous octave as he bears his gaze into my soul, “I know you didn’t tell your _teammates_ about me because you know what that means for you. What that shows _about_ you… who you _truly_ are.” I gasp for breath desperately and get just enough that when I open my eyes they are still relatively clear, but I wish I weren’t as I look into the icy chasm of Damien’s gaze. “Will,” He purrs, his breath reeks of green apples as it cascades across my features, “Who do you belong to?” 

I know what I’m supposed to say. I know the line, but _I’m not playing your games anymore. I’m not gonna submit to you anymore, I’m done being okay with this, I’m done, I’m-_

**<

Damien’s gaze flares with such true rage that an instant spike of terror stabs into my heart and suddenly the pressure is gone. I take a shaking gasp but I don’t get even a second to recover until I’m falling and hitting something soft. I dig for purchase on my bedsheets and that’s when Damien’s arm pushes down on my shoulders and the other winds around my waist to the front of my pants and the reality of the situation slams into my like a freight train. 

“No!” I snap, writhing and kicking behind me as I try to get a hold on Damien’s head with an arm and twist onto my back, “Get off! I don’t-!” 

Damien’s hand vanishes from the front but instead grabs my hair and forces my face into the mattress while the other grabs the arm I’d smacked him in the face with, he grabs and pulls and pushes and suddenly a harsh pain radiates in my arm but he keeps pushing, and pushing, it gets worse, I let out a sharp cry as it becomes blinding and then I hear the _snap._

I would’ve screamed loudly if it weren’t for my entire face being smothered by my blankets. All I can see is blackness and all I can feel is the absolute agony ripping through my arm and shoulder, it feels _wrong_ , it feels like Damien ripped my arm off its socket and is now holding my arm pinned on my back at an awkward angle, my entire body goes lax as I try to alleviate the agony, _it hurts, oh my God it hurts so bad, stop, stop-_

I can’t speak except to sob as Damien’s voice sighs next to my ear, “Damnit, see what you made me do? If you’d just quit struggling so much this would be easier for us both.”

Outside the radiating pain I feel his other hand again on the front of my pants, undoing them, pulling them down, I can’t move except to shake and sob because it _hurts, oh my God it hurts, it hurts, it hurts._ “I don’t like punishing you, you know.” Damien says with a disappointed voice, I can barely hear it over the screaming of _my shoulder something is wrong with my shoulder_ in my ears, “But you seriously leave me no choice when you’re out of control like that. You need to learn some discipline. You need to learn your _fucking place.”_

I feel the pressure. The pain of the stretch starts, grows, _rips_ , I cry out when Damien pushes in and desperately I grab the sheets over my head with my free hand to do something, _anything_ to get out of his reach but all I do is make his grip on my screeching arm shift and push _up._

The pain doubles, from my shoulder, from the pressure behind me ripping down my veins, I feel a harsh bite and a purr on the back of my neck as his tongue lathers on what feels like something stinging and wet, “Love it when you fight like this. Makes it that much more satisfying when I make you a mewling mess just for me. Now come on, open up for me, angel.” He starts to move and everything starts to hurt and scream at once, it smashes my mind into a vat of lukewarm water and suddenly everything is quiet. Not silent, but… quiet. 

**>

I open my tear filled eyes and look around to see I’m in an empty glass aquarium, there’s darkness with soft blue light refracting into the gentle, not quite warm, not quite cold waters I’m floating in. That’s when I hear the music. 

I recognize it. I know it like the back of my hand. It’s one of the most beautiful songs I ever learned by a talented pianist from before the turn of the millennia, _it reeks in sadness and a want for things to be different_. 

There’s a whine, like the sliding of a bow down the strings of a cello, and then a beeping of a passing airplane. _Maybe that’s why I’m thinking about it now? Am I thinking? I don’t really know where I am, save that it isn’t where I was and I’m glad it isn’t. That wasn’t a good place._ I feel it rocking my body on another plane like it’s caught in the violent tug of a riptide so I focus on the music instead, the sapphire light refracts across my uncertain vision. Bubbles rise from my lips when I exhale but strangely enough I can breathe just fine, though its cold and there’s this strange taste on the sides of my tongue like long forgotten food. There’s the dripping sound of water beyond the music, like I’m within a massive cavern, and the music is seeming to come from below me, I can almost feel it pushing up through the water to get to me.

I hear the voice of a small child through the space, a soft echo that holds my attention like the lyrics of a siren.

 _“_ _She packed my bags last night pre-flight,_ _  
_ _Zero hour. Nine A.M._   
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then.”

I turn about in the liminal space, pushing my hands through the perfect stillness of the waters. I recognize that this isn’t real, in some deep recess of my consciousness. I recognize that this isn’t a real place, but I also know why I got dropped off here. Or, rather, how I got thrown here. _This is a much better alternative._ I hear another whine and as I slowly drag my hands through the dark waters to follow the sound of the music below me I see a child sitting at the bottom of this pool we find ourselves in. They look kind of like me, a little kid no older then six or seven with a wild nest of red hair, and in nothing but a white t-shirt that drags past their knees it’s so large on them. They’re on top of a small piano, like from the Cashews cartoons, and when they make eye contact with me I can feel the song more than I can just hear it as they serenade me with words that ache throughout my being in more ways than one. I find myself mouthing the words along with them, then joining in the song as the lonely ache stabs through my chest.

 _“I miss the Earth so much,_ _  
_ _I miss my life._ _  
_ _It's lonely out in space._   
On such a timeless flight.”

I take a shaky breath as I feel the vague whimperings of pain across my shoulders, my back, I force it out of my mind as quickly as possible as I dive down closer to the child. My hands press against the bottom of the smooth pool, like the floors of the Castle, until I can turn and face them where they perch with their hands on the keys. Not playing. But I can hear the crescendo of the song rising, I know it’s supposed to be coming, so I reach around behind them and guide their hands on the keys. They let me, looking down at our adjoined hands as I move them through the chords and notes, this time I join them to sing together for the familiar chorus.

 _“And I think it's gonna be a long long time_ _  
_ _'Til touch down brings me round again to find_ _  
_ _I'm not the man they think I am at home,_ _  
_ _Oh no, no, no, I'm a rocket man._   
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.”

The child’s hands suddenly pull away from mine and they start to fade, their existence fizzles and mists like dissipating cotton candy in the water and then suddenly they’re gone from beneath me. I don’t feel concerned about it; rather I shift to take their place and almost in response the piano gets larger, like those old, fancy ones they have in concert halls. I only ever played one once, I wasn’t supposed to, but I did anyway in that museum… it was amazing. 

“ _Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids._ _  
_ _In fact it’s cold as hell._   
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did…”

I feel a tremble of pain again, like the lash of a whip against my shoulder but in this strange space it doesn’t seem that bad. I see the keys beneath my hands and from behind them I see the Castle, then the rest of the team, Pidge glaring at her holographic panel, Hunk smiling with massive bags slung over his shoulders, Shiro laughing, Lance draping his arms across my shoulders. Keith. 

 _“And all this science, I don't understand._ _  
_ _It's just my job five days a week…”_

I feel another stab from behind me, radiating outwards like a stone dropped in the pond and this time the water around me suddenly wavers with it, the song starts to play itself. The piano falls from beneath my hands and I scramble for it to no avail, it slides through the water and into a black trench below that I hadn’t seen until now, that wasn’t there until now.  
_“A rocket man… rocket man.”_

I float in the waters, listening, helpless. There’s now a permanent ache resting in my core, a jabbing throb in my shoulder, but the lack of pressure from the water helps it a little… but now, with nothing near me but water and nothing to look at but the glimmer of turquoise light shining within it, it grows into something more painful. Worse. My stomach clenches as I realize why I’m here, what I’m hiding from. 

I think I’m unconscious. I think that this place is a fragment of my waking mind that I’ve made to keep me safe from the reason why I ended up here. As if to punish me for thinking, the chorus of the song comes crashing into my head, raw emotion swells in my throat and I feel like I want to scream with it but the primal noise I make doesn’t even encapsulate the fullness of it as the words channel through my chest and into my hands, winding and unwinding through the waters to find some purchase that doesn’t exist.

 _“And I think it's gonna be a long long time,_ _  
_ _‘Til touch down brings me round again to find_ _  
_ _I'm not the man they think I am at home,_ _  
_ _Oh no, no, no, I'm a rocket man._   
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.”

The water by my eyes turns warmer, sickeningly sweet tasting salt lies within it as the waters everywhere else around me grow colder, I feel movement again but it’s not from this space, I’m freefalling in a dream that I’m only somewhat aware of having. I feel like it’s drawing on me, trying to drag me out of the water like a fish on a line, I see the notes glistening in the waves, trebles, half notes and quarters, I grab for them desperately to stay, _stay, stay._  

 _“And I think it's gonna be a long long time_ _  
_ _'Til touch down brings me round again to find_ _  
_ _I'm not the man they think I am at home,_ _  
_ _Oh no, no, no, I'm a rocket man._   
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.”

 _Up here alone._ I snatch onto a treble clef and hang onto it like a lifeline as the tears in my eyes really start to join the waters around me with earnest, a hiccup hitches in my lungs. _I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone._

_“And I think it's gonna be a long long time.”_

I close my eyes and cry as I start to feel again; I’m not surrounded in water anymore, but I still feel it wrapped around my head, even though I look around and I see nothing amiss. _I’m alone. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m doomed to be alone and feel this alone and no one will ever know. I’m alone, and I will always be alone._

_“And I think it's gonna be a long long time.”_

The lights flicker and start to make me dizzy, so I close my eyes and find myself letting go of the tension in my shoulders. Acceptance. _I’m alone, and I will always be alone. This is all I can ever really know._ Acceptance, but not peace. The pain is mounting, my blood is rioting and I want to beg for help _but from who? I’m alone, and I will always be alone._

 _“And I think it's gonna be a long long time._ _  
_ _And I think it's gonna be a long long time.”_

**<

The waters begin to bubble, like a release of gas pipes from the bottom of the pool. I try to hang on as long as I can but as soon as I let go a hand grabs my hair and the song in my head turns into a mindless scream; I’m dragged from the water, water that doesn’t exist, water I created to waterboard myself with. It all crashes over me anew, but it’s all so sudden and immediate that I can’t tell where one pain ends and another begins, all I know is there’s a hand on my throat that’s cutting off my airways and there’s the climbing of broken strings and notes through my ears, louder, _louder, please make it stop, please make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop-_

There’s a loud knocking on the door followed by a demanding bark, “Will!” 

The hand leaves my neck and I can breathe again, the hand on my arm releases me and I let out a gasp of relief but renewed pain as the agony in my shoulder rips anew, I’m pulled into an upright position with a drag from around my knees back to my waist, _oh, my pants._ I blink through the whiteness and the clouds, hiccuping, wheezing, trying to figure out where I am and what’s real before a sudden sharp slap across my face snaps me violently to the moment when I look into Damien’s eyes and a fresh sob rises anew. 

***>

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, angel.” He coos just below a whisper, wiping the tears from my cheeks which just makes me want to cry harder, but when he puts two fingers over my lips I stop immediately, like a switch being flipped. “There’s a good boy.” He cups my face in his hands and looks at me seriously, murmuring softly, “Now, go answer the door and tell him to go away. Do that and I’ll give you something nice.” 

I hiccup as another sob arises. _I don’t want something nice. I want to go home._ He sharply taps my cheek again with two fingers, a threat, but not a real application as he continues in the same sweet tone, “You don’t want to make me angry again, now do you?” 

There’s another loud, demanding knock followed by a more demanding voice, “Will, open the door.” _Shiro._

_Oh God. Please, no. Not right now. Not like this._

_This can’t get worse._

“Send him away, sweetheart.” Damien repeats his order to me in a soft whisper, “You don’t want him to see you a mess like this, do you?”

I look at him with a shaky breath as I fight to bring my tears under control and shake my head obediently. _No, no I don’t want him to see me like this. I’m sorry I let this happen._

“Go on, then.” He taps my side to get me to rise and I do, shaking, I almost stumble and fall as the movement makes the agony in my shoulder give away to the burning, hot, wet sensation in my lower back… in between my legs. It almost makes me break out into tears all over again but I push them away, instead steeling myself as I clutch my aching arm to my chest and hold the other hovering over the door. _Send him away. You don’t want to make me angry, do you?_

I open the door an inch, just enough to see out of. Shiro is right there, looking like he’s about to break in, but when I only open the door a fraction I see his deep, worried frown turn into one of confusion. “... Will, are you okay?”

I can feel Damien’s gaze from where he sits two feet to my right. My left shoulder screams _something is wrong._ Mutely I nod, but before I can close the door Shiro hitches like he just got asked to do an impromptu speech with a hand in between the door and the frame, “Er, can I uh… Can I come in?” 

I start and immediately shake my head, “No!” My voice croaks, raw and aching. Shiro blinks at me for a moment and I realize how I must sound, so I clear my throat and reduce my voice to just above a whisper, “I mean… it’s a mess in here. Right now. So…” _Go away. So go away before I make this worse._

Shiro flickers his gaze across the minimal amount of my features he can see before he looks to the side, at the door. Finally after what feels like years he speaks again, “... There’s something wrong with the White Lion. I need you to come with me. Right now.” 

_Right now?_

I start to shake. _Right now?_

_If I leave in the middle of getting punished that means I’ll receive double later. And if it’s bad now… Oh God what could happen to me later?_

_But I can’t ignore this. I can’t let the team down more than I already have._

_But if you step out of this room, Shiro will see you for what you really are. You can’t hide this, his mark is upon you._

_I don’t have a choice. They need me, so I’m going. I’ll… I’ll take whatever punishment Damien deems later, but right now my friends need me. I’m not going to fail them again because I’m scared._

I don’t look to the side in fear of what I’ll see in Damien’s face. Instead I swallow to keep my voice as even as possible before I state in a monotonous voice, “Alright. Let’s go.” I open the door just enough to walk out, keeping my screaming arm close to my chest. Rather, it’s the shoulder that’s screaming. It hurts so badly that it’s making my hands shake as I shut the door, but I ignore it as best as I can as I turn down the hallway towards the surface projector without waiting for Shiro, dragging my feet, fighting to sound normal, _I can’t let him know that anything is wrong. Nothing’s wrong. I… deserve this._

“What’s wrong with my lion?” I ask after a moment, I’m rather impressed with how normal I sound. I feel outside of myself, I’m watching myself walk and talk, it’s the only way I can keep myself walking like normal, not like there’s something wrong with my shoulder, not like there’s something wrong in me-

Shiro doesn’t answer, his hand touches my lower back and I flinch so hard it makes my shoulder scream, I grit my teeth and hold onto my elbow to keep it still. 

Suddenly we round the corner, away from the hangers, I blink and look over at Shiro and mutter, “This isn’t towards-”

“Will, there’s nothing wrong with your lion.” Shiro replies swiftly, so fast I almost don’t follow as he turns and faces me and that’s when I get a look of his face. It’s scanning mine so intensely I’m balking, freezing to the floor before he whispers, “I uh… Heard you, sort of. Calling for help.” 

My throat closes entirely and against my consent I whimper. Shiro frowns as his gaze moves down, to my shoulder, his prosthetic touches it and I flinch with a gasp, “What happened?” He demands with full command steeling his voicee.

I break. I tried so hard to hold the fragmenting pieces of myself together, gluing them as fast as they were cracking but now, alone with Shiro in the dark corridor, it crackles and fractures and rains down broken glass around me as I start to sob without reserve. I can’t stop it, I don’t bother stopping it, _it’s over. I’m done for. I’m fucking done for, this is it. This is the worst timeline, this is it, everyone will know how weak and pathetic I am and worst of all it’s Shiro who found me out._

My head starts to spin and next thing I know I’m on my knees, hanging my head as it starts to pour. “Whoa, shh, shh, it’s okay, Will, it’s okay.” Shiro joins me on the ground, his hands grasp my good shoulder while the other holds my head and it feels so wonderful, it’s so gentle and soft and I feel so suddenly alienated and cold that his hands touching me are like licks of flame starting to dethaw my limbs. It just makes me sob that much harder. 

Shiro pulls me close and my face is pressed against his shoulder, I dig my fingers into the front of his shirt, his sleeping shirt I realize, he’s in his pajamas, and cry. Cry and cry and cry like a broken dam, and I can’t find it in me to care. 

Shiro’s murmuring soft _‘it’s okay’s’_ to me into my hair, his arms wrapped around me are so all encompassing that it just makes me feel that much colder, _I must be spreading this icy sickness to him,_ but I can’t pull away. I need it so badly. 

We sit like this for a long time on the wall in this small side hall, and I don’t stop crying until I have literally no tears left. My left arm hangs in my lap uselessly as the pain rages in my shoulder, the other arm holds the elbow tight against my chest to keep my shoulder from moving while my head pounds and my throat aches from how thirsty I am. And, now that I’m sitting and everything’s still, I feel more pains where I didn’t before; the back of my neck stings and feels inexplicably cold, my stomach hurts and lower than that… something is wrong there. I know what, but I wish I didn’t. I push the thought away as it already brings another dry sob into my throat.

Shiro pulls away first, immediately I start to shiver from renewed cold. Both of his hands cup my face and I close my eyes so I don’t have to see his; I know how I look, I know how pathetic I seem, and although that’s out of my control now I don’t want to see how it’s impacting him. I don’t want to see the judgement dawn in his eyes. 

“Will…” Shiro prods gently, but I don’t open my eyes. I can’t. I don’t want to see his revelation in real time. “Were you alone in your room?”

I tense and open my eyes and meet Shiro’s. They’re dark and shadowed in the night-lit Castle hall, furrowed and worried, but not… upset, like I thought they would be. Just concerned. 

My silence doesn’t deter him, rather he continues while his thumbs smooth the wetness under my eyes, “... Was Damien in there with you?”

If I had any tears left to cry I definitely would start all over again. I choke on a dry sob nonetheless, it makes Shiro’s cradle around my face tighten and my lungs ache. _It doesn’t matter now. He knows. It’s all over, this is it for me, it doesn’t matter now what he thinks. He might as well hear the truth._

“I-It’s my fault.” I stammer, taking in a shaking breath before I lose my courage, “I-I disobeyed too many times, I tried to fight but I’m too _pathetic_ and _weak-”_

Shiro silences me with such a tight hug that it all but strangles the words back down my throat, I let my body go lax as much as I can with the agony in my shoulder, as much as I know I don’t deserve to melt into the warmth and comfort around me I let myself do it anyway because I’m just so fucking starved for it. I’ve never felt so cold and angry with myself. “I-I’m sorry, I’m so s-so sorry, I tried so hard to keep you all from finding out about me but I’m not strong enough-”

“Shh, Will, stop.” Shiro presses two fingers over my lips, I whimper and squeeze my eyes; it’s childish, I know, but I have so few things left, I don’t want to see the lack of respect in his eyes now. “You are _not_ pathetic. You are _not_ weak.” Shiro whispers, I can feel his hands cupping my face again so gently that I feel a dry sob welling back up in my chest. “You shouldn’t apologize. You should absolutely _never_ apologize... _I_ should be apologizing to you.” I blink a bit deliriously and finally meet his gaze, my heart strangles my throat when I see the agony hidden in the stormclouds. There’s no other way to describe it, it’s hurt beyond recognition, a deep welling sadness and helpless anguish. “ _I’m_ sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see what was going on sooner. I’m sorry I stood by and didn’t help you. I’m _so so_ sorry you were alone.” 

I take a shaking breath and just like that the waterworks begin all over again. Somewhere deep in the reservoir of my body more tears are found and they rebound to drip down my cheeks, this time when Shiro wraps his arms tightly around me I bury my face into his shoulder, there’s already a large wet spot there. My mind’s a bucket of white noise that doesn’t end with anything but static and bone-biting cold and shame.

“... Shiro? Will- are you okay?” 

A fresh reservoir breaks in my throat when I hear the last person I wanted to see me at the lowest point I think I’ve ever been in, I pull away from Shiro to wipe my eyes, firmly facing the wall to try and garner the last two shreds of my self respect. I hear Keith’s boots rushing forward as Shiro twists to face him, a hand grabs my shoulder and this time I wince with a gasp of pain, the hand retreats almost immediately as I feel his gaze, taking in the pathetic scene in front of him. As much as I yearn to look into the violets of his eyes, I don’t let myself; because I don’t want him to see me in my full horror, because I don’t deserve to gain any comfort from his presence no matter how small it is, because comfort is the last thing I’m going to get when I look into his eyes and see the disgust manifest.

Shiro answers for me in a hushed undertone, “His shoulder dislocated.” Shiro murmurs, though there’s a twinge in his voice that I don’t understand as he suddenly stands, “We need to get you to the infirm, now.” He touches my good arm and pushes me to rise and I follow without resistance, leaning slightly against him as my legs threaten to give out from the strain. Idly I wonder why my stone isn’t healing me, though when I look down I see it beneath my shirt, glowing a soft silver through the material. _It’s working… just slowly._

I feel another arm wrap around my waist on my left side where I clutch my arm to my chest, I hang my head and squeeze my eyes firmly shut, _I don’t want to see his loss of respect for me, it hurt so badly to see it before but now it will be worse than ever. This is the worst timeline._

“You’re bleeding.” Keith murmurs beside me, I feel a hand touch the back of my neck and I hiss from the fresh sting. I didn’t notice it, too clogged up by the other, more prevalent pains. _I think it’s probably a bite mark. He loves to bite in places others can see so he knows who I belong to._

Shiro lets out a hard breath, “Infirm first.” Keith doesn’t say anything. Merely holds his hand against it. He’s wearing his leather gloves. _Doesn’t he know he’s gonna ruin them by putting them over a bloody wound?_  

They set me down on the stairs when we arrive ages later to the infirm, I collapse and hold my arm close to my chest. 

The time for patience is over, it seems, for as Shiro rifles around in a nearby drawer I hear Keith’s voice demanding directly in front of me, “How the hell did this happen?” 

Against my better judgement, I open my eyes and meet his. 

He’s kneeling in front of me where I sit on the steps, he has his jacket, his gaze is searching, ripping apart my expression before he scans my body and I cringe before it, knowing exactly what I must look like. _A stupid, used bitch._

_Don’t make me say it._

“I-it’s my fault,” I wheeze, squeezing my eyes shut again and tilting my head down, towards the ground, “I’m so sorry I did this, I caused so much _hurt_ a-and-”

Shiro returns to my side and puts something in my hand, a small pill, and a glass of water before he murmurs in a gentle voice that’s still stoic and firm, “No. It’s not your fault, it’s absolutely _not_ your fault. Don’t you dare say that again.”

I swallow and don’t say anything further. Shiro produces a long strip of white cloth and what appears to be roll of bandages as I take the pill and follow it with the water like a dying man in the desert as Keith’s voice falls to a soft whisper, “... What’s going on?” 

I set the cup down with shaking hands. I can feel Shiro’s gaze boring into the side of mine, slowly I meet them and try not to balk at the intensity of his expression. He’s… not upset. Judging, even. He looks almost like he’s pleading. 

“Will, you can’t keep hiding this anymore.” He whispers in an undertone, his hand settles on my back and I try not to sob all over again, but it’s proving more and more difficult the more they look at me. “If you’re up for it… we want to know how this happened. But only if you are okay with talking about it. If you don’t want to, then you absolutely do not have to, okay?” 

He lets his hand drop from the middle of my spine before he shifts to sit a little more behind me and starts to tie the cloth around my neck, giving me only one pair of expectant eyes on mine. I swallow as I slowly let my gaze drift back to Keith’s and I shiver when I see the sudden change in his demeanor; he seems to have sensed the seriousness of the atmosphere and he’s shifted to sit fully on the step rather than kneeling on it. He slowly moves his hand from the metal to my forearm then up to my shoulder and I almost start crying again at the sensation alone, it’s warm, comforting, a simple touch has never elicited such a response from me before but I don’t care. I’m so far beyond presentable that I don’t care to keep up appearances anymore, I grab his wrist then his hand like a lifeline and hold onto him tightly to keep him from running away. The leather is worn and warm, supple and soft beneath my fingertips.

He stays and watches me with a quiet expression, patient, waiting. 

_It doesn’t matter anymore. Damien’s revenge is going to be swift and sure, nothing can save me from that. It doesn’t matter anymore what anyone thinks of me because this is the lowest I think I’ve ever been._

So, I tell them. 

I speak in a low, slow whisper. “I met Damien back on Earth when I just moved to Texas.” I keep my voice even, closing my eyes so I don’t have to look at them while I recount it, “It was at some party. I’d never been to one before, my friend dragged me along. He was… so nice. He thought I was funny and witty and he was so charming, so we started dating pretty quick… Then things started to change. By inches. He got really… possessive. He didn’t want me to go out with my guy friends. He didn’t like it when I danced at parties because he didn’t like people looking at me, but he liked parties so I threw them a lot to get him to visit me. I h-had a problem. With the drinking. Because once I start I can’t stop, and he never wanted me to stop because he told me he had the most fun with me when I was blackout. Which… isn’t normal.” I let out a hard breath through my nose as my shoulder shifts when Shiro’s adjusting the cloth to loop under my arm to hold it up for me, I grit my teeth and push onward, “I _knew_ that wasn’t normal, but I didn’t think about it because I was just so happy someone liked me that way. No one ever had. And he was a catch, everyone I knew raved about what a great guy he was, top of the class, a _Garrison_ boy; dating someone at the Garrison was an automatic ticket to the top of the stupid social hierarchy at school.” 

“But it kept getting worse. He kept telling me… things. That he’s lucky he likes me because no one else would. That he’s all I got for options and I’m fortunate that he can handle me because I’m _so much all the time._ Which wasn’t _normal._ I _knew_ that that wasn’t normal but i-it also has to be true because _of course_ I’m too much, _fucking look at me._ He broke me in half a-and called me worthless and of course I-I’m gonna stay with him because he’s the only one who will take me and he wasn’t _like that_ before, no one ever said he was, he was a _great guy, a Garrison boy,_ I’d be stupid to let him go. I was too scared to by the time it got bad enough for me to realize it was bad and-” I cover my face with my free hand, suddenly I feel put on a pedestal and I want to run and hide and crawl into a hole and die in it from shame but who fucking _cares_ anymore, they already _know._

“When he went into space and his team was reported dead I fucking… I was _so happy._ I thought it was an easy way out because I was too much of a fucking coward to leave him myself and I still fucking _hate myself_ for that. How fucking messed up is it to be happy that someone died? It’s fucking _fucked_ is what it is. But I was fucking scared.”

I wave my hand dismissively towards my shoulder while keeping my eyes firmly closed, “I-It wasn’t this bad before. He’s just gone through so much out here, I can’t imagine the sort of suffering he must’ve endured so of course he would be furious with me that I’m treating him differently, because for me I broke up with him when he died, but _he_ didn’t know that, he didn’t understand why I was trying to distance myself from him and it just made him try and hold onto me tighter and then he _fucking heard me talking to you-”_ I balk and slam my mouth shut, squeezing my eyes now so tight that white spots danced like sparks around a firepit. 

“Talking to… Keith?” Shiro softly interjects after a long stretch of silence, I assume they were waiting to see if I said anything further. I feel a swathe of cold on the back of my neck and I start when the stinging begins again, I open my eyes and glance back at Shiro and see that he’s going about bandaging the bite on the back of my neck. His expression is wide open, stunned, upset, and now his gaze is locked on Keith where he sits in front of me. 

Against my better judgement I turn and meet Keith’s gaze; it’s such a double edged sword because I’m both simultaneously scared to see the disgust but desperate for the warmth within that it’s a Schrodingers-like paradox. When I examine Keith’s furrowed expression I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. He looks at me, Shiro working over my shoulder, the sling around my arm, and his eyes seem to turn black in the minimal lighting. “ _Damien?_ Damien did _this_ to you? Because you were _talking_ to me?”

I whimper when Shiro prods the bitemark too hard, I reach to my chest and clutch my lion’s stone tightly in my hand. It continues to glow, but it’s soft, rather faint. _She’s extending her quintessence to the teludav right now, she can’t afford to be healing me for my mistakes anymore. This is the third time in twenty four hours, of course she needs a break. I’m sorry Silver._

“He really, really doesn’t like you. For a lot of reasons, apparently.” I huff, gritting my teeth, “I think that’s why he was so mad at me about it because I-I like you.” I swallow on the words and seal my eyes shut again to prevent the morphing glacier in the back of my throat from fully forming, “He kept calling you stupid names, like _halfbreed_ \- I don’t even know how he fucking heard about that but I told him to stop, I should’ve just fucking let it alone because he was already mad about last night when Hunk and Lance took me home instead of him and that my lion didn’t let him on the ship because she was trying to protect me... Well… actually he got his revenge for that, he smashed my guitar, but still-” 

Shiro sucks in soft breath from behind me, “So your lion _was_ trying to protect you, then. She wasn’t just randomly attacking the engineering labs.” Shiro’s voice is so… dark. Angry. It’s so stark and sudden that I glance back at him with wide eyes to see him sitting back, looking at me with wide, startled, disbelieving eyes. Slowly I bite my lip and shake my head. 

Suddenly there’s a loud crack and I see nothing but white flashes like white movies. I keel forward with a sharp cry and grab my shoulder as it snaps, I bury my face into my knees and bite onto my pants leg so hard that I dig into the skin instead, but once the initial pain is over it passes relatively quickly, and surprisingly my shoulder feels a _lot_ better. It still aches rather badly, don’t get me wrong… but it’s not nearly as bad as before. 

“-you okay?” _Keith._

I vaguely hear Shiro behind me as everything comes back into focus, “-stone put it back into place.”

I lift my head and wince, rubbing my thumb along the ridge of my shoulder and it helps to alleviate the pain a little. I take a shaky breath as I recover, letting my eyes flutter shut. _This has got to have been the lowest I’ve ever been. God, what must they be thinking of me now?_

“You’ve been… this has all been happening for the last two days?” Keith whispers in slight disbelief, I tilt my head in his direction to hear his voice better because _God_ have I missed it. I love to hear his voice so fucking much, it’s beautiful, husky, quiet, gentle with rough and brash edges.

I swallow as a fresh wave of salt overwhelms my senses, but I keep my eyes tightly closed, “I’m… I’m so sorry I’ve sucked at hiding it.” I sniffle and growl, wiping my eyes furiously as another hiccuping sob begins to form, “God damnit, I’m sorry I’m crying, I shouldn’t be crying, after all I’ve done to him, to _you_ -” I briefly meet Keith’s eyes, just enough to see the shades of violet wide and shocked beneath the shadow of his bangs before I’m squeezing them shut again with shame, “I deserve the punishment, I’ve been cheating all this time, he had every right to be upset with me-”

“No he fucking doesn’t.” Keith snarls, his hand suddenly grabs mine and I start hard enough to open my eyes and meet his. They’re burning, his hands and his gaze, full of such a vibrant inner fire that I feel my heart swelling in my throat, “You do _not deserve_ to be hurt like this. He has _no right_ to fucking- he isn’t in charge of you, he doesn’t get to punish you for _jack shit_ , Will. No one is allowed to hurt you, break your things, _ra-”_

I cut him off with a small voice, “Don’t say it.” 

Keith blinks, silencing himself. I duck down into my hands as the pain in my shoulder recedes to a dull ache and begins to be outshined by the growing hurt below my stomach; sudden, horrified, shaking fear wraps around my throat as I whisper again, “Please don’t say it.” 

_Don’t say it. Don’t solidify it, make it real. Don’t put me in that category of victims. Not when I don’t deserve to be there, I didn’t fight hard enough, I didn’t leave when I still could, I didn’t try to stop it when I could- Please don’t say it._

They’re silent for a long time. I cry quietly enough to satisfy the pain inside within the safety of my hands until I run dry all over again. _I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much before._ Slowly warm hands, almost hot to the touch, rest on my shoulders and cup my face so gently it makes my chest ache and my skin yearn for the warmth to melt away the ice and coax the blood within me to flow once again. I open my eyes and meet the depths of space as Keith’s forehead touches mine and I whimper at the sheer touch, I immediately cover his hands with mine and that’s when I realize how hard I’m shaking, trembling, breaking. 

I’m so cold. I’m cold and shivering and his simple touch holding my head in the palms of his hands is restoring the minimal amount of body heat I had and causing it to spread, and even though I know it’s selfish and I know I don’t deserve it I find myself mumbling in a half broken tone, “I-I know you don’t like it much and… I know the last thing you probably wanna do is touch me right now but can… Can I have a hug?” 

Keith blinks in surprise at me like I just asked him to get up and dance for me before he slowly holds out his arms towards me, a bit robotically, like he’s never given a hug before, and for some reason the stupid familiarity of his awkwardness makes me feel so much _fucking_ better. I immediately surge forward and wrap my arms tightly around his middle, he makes a soft noise of surprise but he doesn’t object when I bury my face into his shoulder just inside of his jacket’s stupid popped collar and drape my legs around his waist so I can hug him as close to me as possible, I feel my bare foot knock against the hilt of his knife hidden beneath his jacket. I almost start crying all over again when he slowly hugs me back, his hands resting on the small of my back and rubbing gentle circles with his fingertips there, I dig my fingertips into the textured back of his jacket and I’m so overwhelmed by his scent that the world doesn’t exist around the rocksalt and worn leather I’m encompassed with. Soaking up the heat from his chest, his hands around and moving insistently on my back, I can feel his breathing rising and falling beneath my hands and from within my own chest and it helps to regulate mine, though his breath is still a bit faster than normal. 

I feel another hand on the middle of my back and glides up in down in a gentle manner, it’s such a wonderful feeling I shiver, I’m taking rasping breaths as compensation for the lack of tears I’m able to make at this point and I’d be embarrassed if I weren’t already _well past_ the point of no return in that regard. 

If I weren’t pressed basically right against Keith’s throat I don’t think I would’ve heard his barest whisper, _“I’m sorry.”_

I dig my fingertips tighter into his back and pull him closer, even though that’s basically impossible at this moment because if the spreading warmth throughout my limbs is any indicator we’re already flushed as close as we can be. “Thank you for being here for me.” I stammer after a moment a little thoughtlessly. 

There’s no movement for a long time. Just breathing. Return of warmth, loss of numbing. “Will, you need to get in a healing pod.” Shiro murmurs, breaking the silence. I raise my head and blink, my vision clears when I see Shiro rising behind me, holding out his hands to help me up. Keith shuffles back so I can disengage, wordlessly I stand with his help but as soon as I’m up my legs shake and nearly give, I have to grab onto his prosthetic to keep from crumbling. 

There’s a pod already up, I don’t know when or how Shiro got it up because I didn’t notice it before, but as he starts to guide me towards it I stop and grab his shoulder. He blinks at me with a surprised, worried gaze but I don’t dwell upon it long as I dive in and hug him so tightly that if I had Hunk’s strength I’d crack a rib. He settles his arms on my shoulders with his hand, soothing and warm, smooths my hair and slowly I mutter, “Thanks for getting me.” _I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come to me when you did. I don’t know how you knew, I don’t care, I’m just so so fucking happy you did. Thank you so fucking much._

“It’s the least I can do.” Shiro murmurs. After a moment he shifts so I drop my arms, this time I don’t stop or falter when I get into the healing pod. Wordlessly I lay back and close my eyes, the last thing I think of as the minty mist encompasses me is the ache deep in my core and the smell of leather. 

… 

_Keith doesn’t move from where he sits on the stairs for a long time, even once Will is loaded in the pod. When the status conditions pop up he analyzes them carefully, it says his release time is in an hour and a half, ‘minor flesh wounds, worn ligaments in left shoulder’, but what catches his eye is the last on the list: internal bleeding._

_The rage he’d suppressed earlier flares fresh and new like nothing else he’s ever experienced, it’s righteous and spitting and before he can think he’s on his feet and headed towards the door with a mission and a purpose in his step._

_There are quick footsteps after him, “Wait, Keith-”_

_He doesn’t stop, not even for Shiro, as he clenches his hands into fists. He doesn’t get past the middle of the hallway outside of the infirmary before Shiro catches up to him and plants his hands on his shoulders. Keith looks up at him with an accusing glare as Shiro meets his gaze with a focused, serious expression, “I know what you’re thinking, but-”_

_“You’re insane if you think I’m going to let him walk around here freely after that.” Keith growls, his tone is biting and he doesn’t care to curb it. He’s surprised there’s no smoke coming from his mouth as he speaks that’s how hot is internal fire burns._

_Shiro lets out a sigh, his grip on his shoulders don’t lax but tighten, “He won’t. But we can’t go running off for a manhunt at two in the morning.” Keith lets out a harsh breath through his nose as Shiro continues, “What’s important is Will’s safe, and we know what’s going on and can protect him.”_

_Keith grits his teeth, letting out one more hard breath before he speaks in a dark monotone, “He can’t get to him if his legs are broken.”_

_Keith expected Shiro to tell him ‘that’s not how we deal with our feelings’ or just a straight up ‘Keith, no’, but to his surprise Shiro releases a force-pressed sigh, “... I know how you feel, and I don’t disagree. But we can’t do anything about it right now, not tonight. What we_ **_can_ ** _do is to rest, and take the time to come up with a plan about how to best proceed.”_

 _Keith doesn’t want to rest. How the fuck can he rest when that piece of shit excuse of a human being is strutting around somewhere in this Castleship, on this_ **_planet,_ ** _with two working legs after he fucked Will up so badly he’s cried in front of Keith for the first time he’s ever met him. It wasn’t because of the torture he endured with Sendak, or the countless times they have almost died since they’ve been in space, no, it was because of some guy from Earth. That put the rearrangement of his face on the very top of Keith’s priority list, and that’s just putting it_ **_lightly._ **

_“This isn’t about him,” Shiro murmurs, surprising Keith to look at him with his full attention as his gray gaze zeroes in on the doorway to the infirmary, “Revenge isn’t our first concern. Our first concern is making sure Will is okay, and then making sure that he keeps staying okay.”_

_‘Which means we go and break his fucking spine.’ Keith wants to snarl, but he doesn’t get the chance as Shiro continues, “First thing in the morning, I’ll talk to Allura and make sure the Castle is off limits. Then we’ll go to Ryner and make sure he gets what he deserves.”_

_‘Which is a running list of broken bones.’_

_Shiro seems to sense Keith’s actively burning thoughts as he plants his hands on his shoulders firmly, “We aren’t judges, juries, or executioners up here, Keith. We can’t decide what to do with him ourselves. But we_ **_are_ ** _Will’s teammates. And he needs us right now.”_

 _Keith’s gaze flickers between Shiro’s steel pupils for a few moments before he lets his gaze slide away. He doesn’t want to let this go. He’s_ **_not_ ** _going to let this go. But he knows Shiro is right. Just thinking about Will being alone now makes his chest tighten and his hands clench into fists, two parts protectiveness and worry but it’s fueled with anger; towards Damien absolutely, without a fucking doubt, but at himself. Because he kept his distance. Because he turned away when he saw Will’s discomfort, assuming it was because of their situation but it was because of…_ **_this._ ** _Because the last thing he did before this happened was_ **_walk away._ **

_He’s not doing that again. Not when he’s let this happen for so long,_ **_too_ ** _long. He’s not leaving Will’s side until he knows Damien is off planet or without his kneecaps. Even then that clenching pain in his gut refuses to go away. It was both soothed and intensified when Will hugged him. Soothed because he didn’t realize how much he’d missed Will’s touch, even though his hands were so cold it was like grabbing a metal doorknob inside a walkin freezer. Intensified because Will didn’t treat him differently. He didn’t hate him even though he triggered this series of events. He doesn’t blame himself for what happened - he knows that Damien’s actions are his own decisions and that Keith had no control over it - but he started it. He brought it upon him. But Will wasn’t angry with him. He asked him to hug him. He said it like he didn’t know Keith has been craving to touch him for days, like he expected Keith to_ **_not_ ** _want to touch him._

_Keith gets what Shiro’s trying to say about no vigilante justice in space. He really does. But if this were to happen on Earth, that wouldn’t stop him anyway. And he’s not gonna be stopped now; when he sees that monster he’s going to him bleed._

_But not tonight, because Shiro’s right. There’s nothing they can do about it at two in the morning, no one is awake and Keith doesn’t know where to start looking for Damien. But he does know that Damien’s going to try and get to Will again… but Keith is going to be there._ _  
_ _And this time he’s not walking away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter truly was a pleasure to write. There's nothing more satisfying than writing an emotionally evocative scene on a series of fronts.  
> The song is Rocket Man by Elton John, however this dreamscape he finds himself is actually a reference to the movie Rocket Man, there is a scene just like how I describe which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/r8rXJWWunoc (it's a bootleg version but the beginning especially really encapsulates Will's mental state.) If you want a full experience I'd listen to Rocket Man by Taron Egerton (who plays Elton in the movie) while reading the scene.  
> I also had to end this on a positive note because otherwise the tone would be so violently bleak even I can't handle it. But that made this chapter really long, so I'm sorry about that.  
> Stay tuned for some delicious justice.


	21. Pray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much occurred the night prior; revelations, understandings, pasts unearthed and dug into deeply in ways that Will wishes had never happened but it's all well past that now. Now, Keith and Shiro know his secret that he tried his damnedest to hide and there's nothing he can do about it. Now the question remains: what happens now?  
> \--  
> **Warning: blood and stark violence**

When I open my eyes the minty taste on my tongue recedes and the doors open, I stumble a bit while blinking a little deliriously as I come to. Everything’s groggy, uncertain, shaky, including myself. 

The first thing I see are two figures hunched together, leaning on the pedestal in the center of the room, wrapped in white blankets. I’m in… the infirmary. I can see the shape of the hidden pods in the floor despite the dark. It must still be nighttime, the only lights I have to see by are the light blue power strips in the walls, casting the area around in me in hues of turquoise like I’m at the bottom of a swimming pool.  _ ‘For a while now, drowning the thoughts out with the sounds…’  _

I run my hands down my sides with furrowed eyebrows. I feel… okay. Nothing physically hurts. But something in my chest aches, badly. Something that isn’t due to any sort of injury I may have sustained. But I was in a pod, so I _ was _ the one who was injured…  _ figures…  _ my thoughts are foggy. Distant and shaky. _ Why’s that? Do I want to know? _

One of the two figures crouched nearby stirs and a pair of gray eyes look back at me, gentle and warm and immediately wide awake as soon as they lock onto mine from within the nest of shrouds. Shiro unveils himself from within the bundle and rises, revealing a now-stirring-still-drowsy Keith curled next to him, who blinks awake at the sudden removal of his pillow when Shiro approaches me. “Hey.” He hums, reaching out towards me and settling his hands on my shoulders. Even his prosthetic feels warm in comparison to how cold I feel, I don’t even realize it until he’s touching me and I almost immediately shiver. 

“You feeling okay?” Shiro’s brow is furrowed as his gaze searches mine. I realize suddenly why there’s an aching hole deep in the pit of my chest, because that’s when my memory returns. And I wish it fucking didn’t.  _ ‘I’ve been sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool… _ ’

I seal my eyes tightly shut and take a deep breath before I trust myself to answer. “I’m fine.” I mutter, “Just… tired.” I open my eyes after a moment once I’ve steeled myself and almost immediately flounder when I lock eyes with Keith, who is now awake and standing next to Shiro. His arms are crossed close to his chest and his brow is deeply furrowed, although I usually struggle to pinpoint exactly what he’s feeling, right now it’s flagrantly obvious; he looks… angry. Pissed. I swallow on the knot in my throat and quickly drop my eyes as a slow growing horror begins to grow and clamber into my head without invitation.  _ He must be disgusted with me. This is exactly what I was afraid of… I’m not sure if this hurts as much as I was expecting it to or of I’m just that numb to it all right now. _

“You should head to bed, get some rest.” Shiro murmurs, his thumbs rub along the ridges of my shoulders and draw my attention back to him as he holds onto me tightly, “I know we’ve got a meeting with Kolivan tomorrow, but… I think it might be a better idea if you rested instead.” I furrow my eyebrows at Shiro, prompting his voice to drop to a softer register, “We need you at your full strength when we bring the plan to action.” 

Sudden, frustration and boiling rage seizes me and I have to take a second to soothe myself before I say something I regret.  _ Don’t lose your patience, they have every right to be concerned with how you’ve been acting.  _ “I know.” I state with an edge of diamonds in my tone before I’m able to recover my thoughts enough to wrangle my self control. Slowly I let out a gentle breath, briefly closing my eyes as I focus on my voice, “... I know you’re just worried about me…” My voice sounds far away, distant, like it’s not mine even though they translate what my thoughts are saying well enough, “But the sooner things get back to normal, the more fine I’ll be. So I’m gonna be at that meeting tomorrow… and I’d really prefer if you didn’t throw a fuss about it.”

Much to my shock, Shiro doesn’t argue with me. Instead his grip on my shoulders tighten and his gaze warms like a summer’s overcast, “Alright. You know yourself best.” He releases my shoulders then, but before I can move he continues to speak in a more soldierly, classically Shiro manner, “What do you need from us?” 

I blink at him stupidly, flickering my gaze over to Keith’s stoic, still opaquely pissed expression briefly before letting it fall downward, “What do you mean?”

Shiro’s arms hang at his sides loosely, his prosthetic hand is clenched in a fist as he speaks, “What can we do to help you? Right now, tomorrow…?”

I bite my lip as sudden salt explodes on my tongue so violently I swear I almost cough up seawater; I chew on the flesh of my lips a little harder than I mean to, I taste a small hint of iron blood as a result. It’s a helpful distraction, it refocuses my attention back to the present and what it is that Shiro’s asking me. Keeping me from thinking about… swimming pools. 

“Just don’t treat my differently.” I fight to keep my voice from shaking but it’s damn near impossible, it warbles against my will at the last second and I have to take a breath to recover my self control before I trust myself to speak again, “I know you must think I’m weak after all that, but I promise I’m not gonna let the team down just because-” 

My blood spikes when Keith suddenly snarls, “You are  _ not  _ weak. Shut  _ up _ with that talk.”

I blink in surprise and meet his fierce gaze; being near him him is like standing before a furnace, I can feel some kind of emotional heat rolling off of him in waves that almost tangibly warms the frostbitten ice of my fingers at my sides. When his gaze like nebulas flicker between my eyes, telling me that he’s  _ really  _ looking at me, I have to fight the urge to cower and hide from the vulnerability. 

Luckily I’m so tired that it feels rather secondary anyway, this all hardly feels real enough for me to throw a fuss over. 

However, I don’t get the chance to respond, as Keith’s voice softens with his gaze in a manner I can’t quite explain, and Shiro clears his throat, “What I think Keith means to say is,” I raise an eyebrow at Shiro and see him looking at Keith with a mixed expression, one that speaks like frustration but it doesn’t seem to be pointed at him specifically, “That isn’t how we feel. At all. We’re proud of you for being so strong for as long as you were… But you’re not alone anymore.” I swallow on bile as my breath rattles in my ribcage like an anxious bird, Shiro continues without pause, his gaze pouring into my soul, “Tomorrow I’m going to speak to Ryner privately. Damien and his crew will be off of Olkarion before you wake up in the morning.” 

I blink, shaking my head briskly and frowning as I retort, “No! Don’t - You can’t - You can’t do that!”

“Why  _ not? _ ” Keith snarl back like a wolf snaps its teeth at a rival predator and I find myself flinching. 

Shiro’s gaze locked on mine lodges my tongue in my throat as he murmurs gently in response, making Keith take a figurative step back, “You’re not alone in this, Will. I’m not gonna stand by without doing something.” 

The infirmary is deathly silent for a moment, though nothing is quite as loud as the pair of people in front of me staring into my soul, I can’t make eye contact with them. I can see Shiro is looking at Keith, which helps a little, but Keith’s gaze is so intense itself that it’s like he’s compensating for the both of them. 

“I don’t wanna make a big deal out of this.” I mutter plaintively in response; although I want to meet his gaze, mostly because I fucking missed looking at him, I can’t find it in me to do so without some extreme ache permeating through my bones on the spot. Like an old break in the bone that acts up when the weather is bad. “Besides, he and his team have every right to be on this planet, just as we do.”

“No he  _ doesn’t _ .” Keith growls and flares in response, spitting verbal lava from between his teeth. 

Shiro abruptly places a hand on his shoulder as I look on with wide eyes, after a moment of silent communication between them Keith seems to simmer and revert to the same, hot-under-the-collar-but-placid expression as before right when Shiro returns to face me. “What do you suggest?” He asks, and although his expression is deadly serious his tone is gentle, soft. I’m deeply appreciative. Words can’t truly encapsulate it. 

My first instinctive reaction is to say  _ just let it go and forget this ever happened  _ but based on their mixed expressions I figure we must be  _ well  _ past that. So instead I go for what’s second best. “I’ll just try and stay away from him as best as I can.” I wave a hand a tad dismissively, chewing on my now-bruising lip, “I don’t want to be a drama queen about it. So just… try not to worry about it.”

Shiro frowns at me and I almost jump when his warm hand grasps my shoulder, “We’re already worried about you. It’s not any trouble for any of us to ensure that you’re safe and happy while we’re on Olkarion.” I blink at him stupidly for a solid second, my heart is hammering so loudly in my ears that I almost don’t quite hear him as he releases my shoulder and speaks with the same soft but firm tone, “... I’ll speak to Ryner and ensure that he at least stays away from the Castle. And anytime we’re outside of it, he’s not allowed to be near us… near you.” I furrow my brow but before I can argue Shiro fixes me with a gentle, silencing look, “I won’t tell them why, and I’ll ask them to be discrete about it. I promise you, Will, that no one will know any details unless  _ you  _ decide to tell them.”

It takes me a while until I can properly digest Shiro’s words, something that makes my stomach twist and turn in three hundred different folds. I’m not sure how to feel except… touched, maybe. But mostly worried because it seems so far fetched that anyone can get Damien to do anything he doesn’t want to do, and right now I know his chief priority is wrangling me under his control again… Or maybe I’m just being self centered. We are at war; he probably has other things to worry about. 

Even though Keith seems to hate me…  _ That’s not something I can think about right now- _ and Shiro is treating me gentler, there is no massive difference, not in anything substantial. That is what leaves my chest warming like the spark of a slow burning firepit. And with all things considered - I did kinda break down in his arms - it’s kind of a miracle to me that he’s treating me as such. Gentler, of course, because I kinda broke down in his arms, but the same. Or is it? Has he always treated me this way? Which way is normal?  _ Jesus Christ, my thoughts are all over the goddamn place, focus, Will. _

“... Thank you.” I mumble lamely, chewing on my lip briefly before I cross my arms uncomfortably, “I appreciate it. All of this. I don’t…” I let out a hard, long breath with crossed arms before I start to speak with a low voice that is surprisingly more raw than I was initially ready for, “I didn’t want anyone to know about all this ‘cause I know how it makes me look. So I uh… thanks for not hating me more than I uh… already do.” 

No sooner do the words leave my mouth do I start with an abrupt noise as sudden, strong arms wrap around me, almost crushing me but not quite, not when I’m too busy shaking like a leaf because of how nice the hug is. I didn’t realize how desperate I was for some warmth, some contact and a gentle and reaffirming touch, I sink into Shiro’s arms so readily that in any normal situation I’d be embarrassed, but right now I couldn’t care less about appearances. I couldn’t care at all. 

I hold his sides for a long while, my face is buried in his shoulder and slowly but surely his arms sap the cold away into something milky and lukewarm until nothing’s left but a deep, permeating ache in my chest. After a few minutes of silence Shiro whispers, ruffling my hair with his breath, “I could never hate you, Will. Never.” 

An ice cube lodges in my throat, incredulous and sharp, until Shiro releases me, and when he does he looks over his shoulder briefly at Keith before he turns back to me, “Let’s get you to bed, alright? You need to rest.” 

I nod as if prompted, but upon thinking about going to sleep, after  _ all that _ … it feels impossible, herculean. I can’t sleep normally any other day, but tonight? Of all nights? I could be dead on my feet and my eyes would be wide open, searching, watching, waiting. Especially in my room, where it probably still has my flannel abandoned on the floor, next to my bed, no longer mine, with the rumpled sheets… 

“Ha, fat chance.” I mutter. When I look up I see Shiro and Keith’s matching confused expressions, so I elaborate without any enthusiasm, “I don’t think I can sleep after tonight.”

There’s silence for a few long moments, so long that I swear I can hear all three of our anxious heartbeats. I’m about to break it with a half formed joke to ease their fears until its broken instead by a husky, sheepish voice. “You should sleep with me.” 

Both Shiro and I are so surprised that Keith spoke that we both turn and look at him with matching, incredulous raises in our brows. He stands with crossed arms and a mirroring expression, like he’s surprised that we’re surprised; he shrugs a bit as his gaze drifts a bit to the side when he elaborates, “You said that it helped you once. And he won’t looking for you in my room, so you’ll be safe there.” Keith’s thick eyebrows suddenly furrow, his gaze glints like obsidian in the shadow of the blackened room as his voice, like he’s relaying a plan to invade the Space Base, morphs to something pitch dark and gritty, “But if he does-” 

“I doubt he will.” Shiro finishes on Keith’s behalf, giving him a meaningful look I’m too tired to decipher. Too tired, too tired, yes, but not tired enough to nearly shatter asunder at the thought of sleeping in Keith’s room. With him… his arms around me, his cinnamon scent just under my eyes… 

I’ve never been so enticed by cuddling in my whole life. 

_ Unless I’m totally misinterpreting this.  _ I chew on my lip, clearing my throat as I respond with a lilted, breaking up tone that I can’t quite keep straight, “Uh, but where would you… um… where would you sleep?”

Keith blinks at me like I just grew two heads, tilting his head to the side like a confused puppy, “With you…?” 

I’m a little ashamed at how much I perk up at this. “Oh! Alright!” I clear my throat and try to disguise my enthusiasm at the last second, intensifying my shame even more so because despite all that he’s witnessed  _ this _ causes Shiro to snicker under his breath.  _ Jesus Christ.  _ “But uh, I should shower first.” I mutter after a moment, rubbing the back of my neck as I look off to the side with red rising in my visage for a whole new and horrible reason. “‘Cause uh… Healing pod musk… ya know?”  _ Right. Healing pod musk, exactly.  _

“Good idea.” Shiro murmurs affectionately, his hand rubs the space between my shoulderblades and I almost immediately lean into the touch like a puppy starving for attention. He raises an eyebrow at Keith briefly over his shoulder before he murmurs with his head leaning towards me, “You gonna be okay?” 

I’m not quite sure in what manner he’s speaking of when he asks this, but I find myself nodding anyway. As I turn to leave, I hear nothing but my sneaker-steps on the smooth white floors, a sudden question forms from the deep recesses of my memory. I pause in the doorway to see both Shiro and Keith standing next to each other, looking at one another with meaningful manners, that is until I draw their attention by speaking up with a curious note in my voice, “Shiro?” 

He immediately looks up at me with a curious yet also worried raise in his brow, I try to sate him by appearing as emotionally okay as I can as I speak in a low tone, “How did you know to come and find me?”

Shiro visibly falters, his gaze drops to the ground and grows somewhat puzzled as Keith looks on with confusion only equaled to mine. After a few seconds of silence Shiro looks up and answers with stark, clear veritas in his tone, “I… had a strange dream. I was someplace under water, and there was this song, someone singing. I went to try and follow it, then I saw this child sitting at a piano, but before I could say anything I felt…” Shiro pauses as the familiarity of his words settle uncomfortably over my aching bones like cold morning dew on grass, he tilts his head as he furrows his brow, “I think it was my lion. Or yours. I honestly can’t tell. One of them just showed me the hallway by your door and I had this really bad feeling…” He trails off and when his gaze meets mine I have to drop it first before my chest starts to ache from the pity in his eyes. 

“Oh. Cool.” I mutter lamely.  _ I need to get out of here. Away from their gazes. Away from their pity and worry and soon-to-rise disgust.  _ Without another word I make my move to go, walking out of the infirmary, down the hall, before long I find myself in the hallway leading towards the showers with nothing but myself and the dark hall lights. 

I keep my thoughts at bay as long as I can, and thanks to the healing pod I’m sluggish enough that it works for a surprisingly long amount of time, but in its place comes the paranoia. I struggle with the shower; I wonder whether I should hold the door open  _ just in case,  _ or have it be closed just in case  _ I’m not alone. _ I tap a panel to check the time - it’s 3am - the odds that Damien is still up and running around at this time is relatively slim but he  _ could  _ be. He  _ always  _ could be.  _ He could be right outside, waiting for me to get just complicit enough for him to slip in and finish what he started while I’m already vulnerable.  _

Yes, that terrifies me. But not enough to shut the shower door. 

Until, that is, after I scrub my skin so hard its pink for the second time to get the stench of green apples off, I hear the door open. 

I leap into action like lightning striking a tree in the midst of a thunderstorm. I snatch the towel where I had it resting overtop the shower door and cover myself as I peek out, hand hovering over the  _ shut  _ mechanism of the shower door, but to my shock I don’t see Damien’s icy gaze meeting mine as I bark. “Who’s-?!... Oh, Jesus  _ Christ,  _ Keith, you scared the shit out of me!” I let out a shaky breath and shut off the water, wrapping the towel around my waist more fully rather than hastily thrown over me protectively where I stand poised in the open doorway of the shower. 

Keith hesitates by the bench in the middle of the first room and suddenly looks away, his entire face blooms bright red and his hands, I can see now they’re clinging to folds of white and gray cloth, tighten their hold. “Er- sorry, I was just- You didn’t get any clothes so I went and uh-” 

“You followed me?” I blink stupidly, staring first at his blushing face and then the clothes in his hands, “Are those… mine?”

“Uh.” Keith clears his throat, shaking his head a little like a dog after a bath, “I was- You just ran off so I followed you, yeah! And- yeah, I went looking for your pajamas but I couldn’t figure out where you keep them so I just… got what I know you’ve slept in before.”

If I didn’t feel like a cracking crystal figurine I would’ve made a joke of some kind, this feels like something that could be joked about, but I’m so dangerously close to fracturing at any given second that I don’t trust myself with it. Instead I smile sheepishly, and with one hand on the towel around my waist I take the clothes from him. “... Thank you.” I look down at the folds of cloth and recognize the strangely cut, white sweater with a wide neck and a short cut, a pair of large, comfy, gray sweatpants, and one of the pairs of Altean underwear from my drawers. _Yeah, these are clothes I have slept in before._ _Actually, come to think of it, I think this was the underwear I was wearing when we- How observant of you._

“I didn’t think about getting a change of clothes, thanks.” I repeat after a moment, fingering the cloth before looking back up at Keith. His expression is soft, almost forlorn, it takes me aback and leaves us looking at each other for a few seconds before I realize we’re just standing there staring at each other like idiots. “Um,” I bite my lip, breaking the silence and causing Keith to blink like he just awoke from a daze, “I’m gonna change…?”

“Oh! Yeah.” Keith clears his throat awkwardly, looking briefly down at the towel around my waist before he ducks out of the bathroom. 

I take a soft breath, running a hand through my now-beginning-to-dry hair.  _ He’s acting strangely. I thought he hated me? Maybe he’s repulsed but is stomaching it for my sake? I should make sure he shouldn’t feel like he has to do that…  _ I suck in breath and let it out again, focusing on the repetition for a few minutes before I get redressed in the clothes Keith brought. 

When I come back outside, I find him leaning on the wall just outside of the shower room, his arms crossed and his gaze locked on the bathroom door like a watchdog. A part of me is flattered because  _ aww, he stayed _ , another scared because  _ does he think that I’m in danger?  _ Another part is annoyed because  _ I don’t need protecting,  _ and yet another is just simply confused because  _ why did he stay? _

He looks up at me when I walk out and pushes off the wall, together we match step and I follow him back to the hallway with silence hanging between us.

A silence I intend to break.  _ Tell him that this isn’t necessary.  _ I frown, chewing on my lip; my breath suddenly feels so, so loud in the empty, dark hallway of the slumbering Castle.  _ That he doesn’t have to pretend he still likes me after all that. He’s allowed to hate me.  _

“Hey, uh… Keith?” My voice grabs his attention, as when I look over at him his gaze is locked so intently upon mine that I balk and shut up for a few minutes, long enough that he raises an eyebrow at me in prompting confusion. “Erm…” I mutter, flickering my gaze away so that I can get my thoughts to fucking  _ focus,  _ “I um… Just so you know, you don’t um… Have to do this or anything.” Keith blinks at me uncomprehendingly, so I elaborate with some vague movements of my hands, “Like, open your room up to me and all that. Or pretend you still um… like me. After all that, it’s okay if you need space.”  _ Away from me. Permanently or not. I hope you don’t want that, I desperately don’t want to be parted from you anymore, especially after… all this. But if it’s what you need I don’t want to inhibit that just because of-  _

“I’ve had enough space.” Keith states with firm resolution, his gaze flickering across my features in a searching manner that leaves me balking. Before long he looks away, his ears begin to take on a ruby tint like he’s embarrassed, but about what I can’t even begin to guess. He parts his lips as if he wants to say more before he stops and closes his eyes, instead favoring to seal his thoughts within the vaults of his mind. Not wanting to test the tumultuous tension between us I don’t press him; I can’t afford to. Especially if we’re gonna be cuddling. All but forgot about that.  _ That is preferred to the opposite, though. Which is sleeping alone, in my room… At the bottom of a swimming pool. _

“... Okay.” I murmur softly in response, letting my gaze drop idly to my feet, “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.” 

“I haven’t.” Keith huffs in an almost irritated manner in response. My immediate response is to say  _ we’ll see about that  _ but I don’t want to push too hard. Especially if we’re gonna be cuddling.  _ Fuck. Are we actually, or am I just assuming? He  _ **_did_ ** _ say we were sleeping  _ **_together,_ ** _ right? So that means cuddling, right? Doesn’t it?  _

When we get back to the hallway I move towards my room to toss my old clothes in my dirty laundry shoot but as I approach a sudden, ice-cold stone sinks in my stomach and I find myself hesitating just in front of the closed door. I know it’s stupid, I  _ know  _ it’s so  _ so  _ stupid, but I have this inkling feeling that Damien is hovering on the other side, watching, waiting all this time to pounce. But I know he can’t be, Keith was in there to get my clothes so that means he isn’t… but what if he is? 

I don’t get any more time to deliberate, as Keith’s gloved hand suddenly swoops into view and snatches the bundle of tainted cloth from my hands. I blink and make a noise of protest but it’s too late, he’s already headed towards his room; he glances back at me and nods his chin towards his doorway in a summoning manner. Letting out a resigned sigh, I follow him without a word of protest. 

Inside I have to pause, staring at Keith’s rumpled bedspread, he keeps walking even as the door behind us closes. I stare at the sheets, remembering the last time I was there, twisted up in his arms in more ways than one. It makes my face bloom bright red, sudden, blossoming heat sprouting behind my nose and spreading like spilled seeds, so instead I force my gaze off to the side as Keith tosses my old clothes down his hamper, a hole in the far wall. When he turns to look back at me then there must be something in my expression that causes him to pause because he freezes, a foot away from me with nothing but the deadly silence of the slumbering Castle around us, locking us in like we’re inside a muffled shoebox. 

“You okay?” He asks after a moment, his eyebrows are raised in genuine curiosity and his violet gaze glinting like the edges of a Galra fighter’s wings. 

I laugh a little incredulously and hover my hand over my mouth, cold seizing my bones and keeping me rigid like a puppet dancing on strings. “What’s okay? I don’t know her.” Keith’s eyebrows furrow adorably, it makes my heart skip a beat, so much so that without much thought I close the distance between us and brush the banged hair from his eyes with another, surprisingly more genuine chuckle under my breath, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.” 

Keith frowns rather deeply at this, so deep that I wonder if I said something wrong or inadvertently hurtful, I retract my hand from his hair only for him to seize it in his. The leather of his gloves is soft and burning with warmth, melting the frost encircling my fingers like melting cuffs as I face the intense furnace, burning violet tinder in his gaze, “I should’ve worried sooner.” He mutters after a moment, his voice is shockingly vulnerable and raw and quiet that it leaves me shell-shocked, stock still and silent as his gaze flickers across my face and then descends downwards to my jaw, my throat, “I should’ve known. I should’ve thought- I noticed but I thought it was because that the way you acted around him was the real you, or something stupid like that- I shouldn’t have thought that. That was so  _ stupid,  _ Will.  _ I’m  _ so  _ stupid  _ for thinking that.” He snarls the last part under his breath with such animosity it makes the hair on the back of my arms stand up, especially the arm in his hand’s fierce grasp. 

I shake my head quickly, moving to take both of his hands in mine and soothingly hum, “Shh, no you’re not, you’re not stupid, Keith-” 

“I’m _ stupid. _ So  _ fucking stupid. _ ” Keith whisper-growls as I shift closer, and he lets me, his arms slide up my forearms and to my biceps, cupping them as I press closer until my arms are wrapped around his waist, his hands are digging into the muscles of my back and his face is buried in my throat, I can feel the tightness of his jaw under my pulse like a rope pressed against my neck. I cut him off again, softly shushing him and hugging him tighter, trailing my hands up his sides soothingly until I allow them to weave into his inky locks, pushing them away from his face and holding him close against me until he stops growling under his breath, until only our mingled breath is heard. 

I don’t plan to let go first, I wait for signals from Keith on when he’s finished touching me but he doesn’t seem to be done, on the contrary he draws closer and closer until when his face pulls away from my neck it feels closer than before,  _ he’s staying close _ . It feels more intimate at this angle, I can see his gaze is wide eyed and surprisingly uncertain. 

His lips brush mine and my brain short circuits, my breath falters. I don’t even think before I respond, I’m so desperate for affection and contact and  _ him  _ after going cold turkey for  _ days _ , I press gently closer, reassuring, almost begging,  _ please,  _ only then does he pursue into a real, affirmative kiss that leaves his breath sighing against my lips and it leaves me shaking on another planet. The frigid ache burrowed into my chest hisses with hot water being added and the steam makes my breath come in soft gasps that escape and ghost Keith’s features. 

I swallow on the lump in my throat when his lips do recede but  _ he _ doesn’t, he _ doesn’t,  _ and by some strangely shitty miracle my eyes find fresh tears buried in some reserve deep in my throat. They spring forth against my consent even as I try to stop them. However, to my surprise, it doesn’t put Keith off, rather he touches his nose tenderly to mine and wipes them away with his thumbs, the water glistens on the leather of his gloves where they cling like morning dew. “It’s okay.” He whispers, I have to swallow on the salt in my throat to stop the hiccuping sob that threatens to come in response as he hums against my lips, “You’re okay.” 

Words I didn’t know I’d thought about but have worshipped nonetheless start to stumble out, spilling out between us as he cups my face so gently, so so gently, “I-I thought you hated me-” I rasp, but before I can finish the half-formed, deep truth he grabs my face and fixes his lips so firmly on mine that breath can’t even escape, I sniffle and grab his wrists and revel in the smothering. When he releases me I suck in breath I find he’s looking at me with a gentle,  _ powerful  _ gaze that suddenly compels me to rush forward and reclose the distance. He stumbles with his arms on my waist, his knees hit his bed and he gives willingly when I push him down, I smother him with my body, trying to touch as much of him as possible all at once because he’s water and my skin is the desert, I desperately want the rehydration he provides and he lets me, he  _ lets me.  _ His hands travel up and down my sides, my back, my neck, my hair, gentle and searching and open, not guiding or pushing, just following. I only pull away slightly to rest my forehead against his once my breath is completely gone and my lungs ache, but I haven’t felt so alive in  _ days.  _ Alive, breathing, wanted, human. 

That’s when I realize how fast this must seem. _After all that-_ _I’m rushing back into it, he’s probably only letting me because he feels sorry for me, god fucking damnit, Will-_ “I-I’m sorry.” I stammer a little, I think I ought to push away to give him some space but I can’t force myself to, not when his hands stay resting in between my shoulderblades, hugging me against his chest as he looks up at me with wide, glimmering eyes, capturing the night sky perfectly inside his soul. Overwhelmed and stupified I brush his bangs from his face, fully beholding him and I almost cry all over again because of how fucking beautiful he is. Overdramatic, heavily charged, but I can’t bring myself to care. I’m too tired. I’m too fucking tired. “You’re so beautiful, Keith.” I whisper under my breath, tracing my thumb underneath his perplexed gaze as the unthought of, deified words manifest in the minimal, stolen air between us, “You look like the night sky. You captured the stars in your eyes.” 

Keith flushes almost immediately but doesn’t respond, although his hands trail from their place on my back to mirror my hold of his cheek on mine, I lean into it with a desperate sigh that I don’t bother to hide. I don’t care to hide how badly I’ve missed his touch. 

“You need to sleep.” Keith finally rumbles, his nose bumps mine but he otherwise doesn’t move. I hum in response to acknowledge I heard him but we don’t move, I stay lying on top of him with his arms around me and his cinnamony taste on my lips, something that I never could have thought could be as delicious and needed as water after a parching run through the night. 

I almost fall asleep like that, I probably would have if Keith hadn’t moved. He shifts out from under me but he doesn’t go far, he keeps his arms tight around me and pulls me into his chest now that we’re lying side by side instead of stacked as before. I help to finagle us under the covers, burrowing into his chest and pressing my face to his neck and shoulder with full intent of never coming out again. Warmth encompasses me, and everything is edged a gentle crimson in my vision as I listen to Keith’s melodic breath when I drift into unconsciousness. 

… 

I’m awakened by soft beeps coming from the holographic panel next to Keith’s bed. I blink sleepily, yawning and reach over habitually to tap it to find the cause and see that it’s an alarm, set for 8am.  _ Christ. This is terrible, we couldn’t have gotten more than four hours of sleep…  _ I shift to roll over again and instead find Keith’s arms, warm and strong and unnoticed until they moved, winding around my middle and holding on tight like Keith’s pinning me down. I smile slightly to myself, reaching around to run my fingers through his hair where I can feel his face pressed against the back of my neck. I wonder whether or not I should wake him, as he has this alarm set for a reason, but I find it’s unnecessary as I hear Keith’s growling voice coming from behind me, “You should go back to sleep.” 

“Good morning to you, too.” I tease with a sleepy lilt, ruffling his hair slightly as he grumbles in response in such a cute manner that I find myself laughing under my breath. His grip around my middle tightens and his cuddles turn more aggressive as he presses closer, I can feel every inch of his body behind me, I trail my hands down his forearms to clasp his fingers and find his hands still clad in fingerless gloves. I scoff a little incredulously and pull off the velcro, “You slept in these?” 

“Mmm… Forgot they was there.” Keith mumbles barely coherently, his breath warms the back of my neck significantly to the point that I feel like I’m being aggressively spooned by a furnace, he clenches his fingers to prevent me from taking them off. I raise an eyebrow and throw a glance over my shoulder, most of my vision is obscured by the crow wings of his bangs that curl in crescent waves across his fair skin like the ocean at night.  _ What’s that for?  _

Upon feeling my gaze he slowly loosens his fists and pulls off his gloves himself, letting them fall off the bed to the side once they’re off. Cautiously I weave my fingers into his, holding them in a gentle net that he can pull away from at any time and find him squeezing my hands back in regular, pulsing intervals, like a heartbeat. I can feel the scars on his knuckles. 

“What’s the alarm for?” I rumble after a moment, allowing my eyes to close once again so I can focus solely on the sensations. His hands are soft after being trapped in the gloves for so long, even the callouses on his thumbs and pads of his palms from deck training. His breathing is warm and deep, like the breath of a peacefully slumbering dragon atop its horde of untold treasures. His legs are draped and tangled with mine like blades of grass in a wild field, untamed, unreserved. 

_ I could write poems about Keith. I could write a Walt-Whitman-Leaves-of-Grass-level poem only about Keith. His hands, his voice, his stupid hair and his stupid jacket… and I hate poems. But after being with Keith, seeing Keith in places such as this, at times such as this… I get why poetry has the allure that it does. But an entire story couldn’t even encapsulate these feelings if I tried to write one, nevertheless a poem.  _

“Training.” Keith hums in response, his voice cracks with the morning and he clears his throat to smooth it over. 

I can’t help but chuckle to myself as I tug to hold onto his arms wrapped around me tighter, “I knew it- I knew you woke up early to train.” I want to sound excited by this revelation but it falls flat, I just sound… confirmed. Like my suspicions are found correct and unwanting.

“This is sleeping in for me.” He responds simply, like this answers everything. I feel him nuzzle the back of my neck and undeniable heat blooms from the contact down my spine and into my ribcage and then further, into my lungs, into my heart and soul. 

“You’re crazy.” I tease, trailing my fingertips along his forearms. I feel him start to move, and as he tries to roll on top of me to rise instead I fasten my arms around his waist to hold him still, much to his displeasure as he gives me a sharp glare in response. “You’re really going to go train?” I plea with complete selfish intent, fluttering my eyelashes at him in a sleepy attempt to be alluring, “Now?” 

“I do it every morning when Shiro doesn’t have training planned for us.” Keith explains, his arms are planted on either side of my head and his weight on top of me is pinning and rather hot, especially under the blankets. Unsustainable. 

“But… cuddles!” I protest, pouting a little more dramatically than necessary as I fix Keith with a pleading look. “Won’t you stay a little longer?” 

Keith examines my features for a long time, so long that I feel my grip on him loosen as apprehension rises to hold me instead, but after a few moments his hands trail from next to my head to weave into my hair, a kiss planted on my temple sends sparks into my blood as he hums, “Come train with me.” 

I pout at him in a coy manner. “Getting beat up by robots is not nearly as enjoyable as cuddling. Even if it’s with you.” 

He sighs and sits up while in my lap, an alluring sight that leaves my hands trailing with my eyes along his sides, it takes some serious self restraint to keep my hands from gliding up his loose shirt to the supple skin beneath. But I manage. He pushes his hair from his eyes with a conflicted set in his brow, eliciting a sigh from me as I murmur, “If you truly want to go, I won’t stop you.” I pause, flickering my eyes down to my hands where they perch where his thighs meet his waist, “But I’m… I don’t really feel up to it. So can I uh… Can I stay here?” I flicker my gaze down to the bedspread and then up to Keith’s face and flush as we make eye contact while my hands are on his waist, it feels so suddenly intimate and gentle that my hands shake. 

His hands leave my hair and replant themselves next to my head and I have to take deep breaths so I don’t absolutely lose my shit right then and there at how gay I suddenly feel when he leans over me, exposing his throat, arching his spine.  _ Jesus Christ is he fucking gorgeous, sitting in my lap and leaning over me with bed head and a scowl.  _

Keith frowns down at me with a pensive expression, one that leaves me a little hopeful that he may decide to stay until he breaks away and rolls out of bed, his feet hitting the floor with the grace of a jungle cat, “Sure.” 

He moves about his room and starts to get dressed, so I turn on my side to watch him. In such a domestic space, just watching him move fills me with warmth that persists even now as the only body heat is what is left of Keith’s and the meager amount I’ve kept trapped under Keith’s sheets. “I’ll be back soon.” He hums as he pulls his gloves back on and straps on his belt, with his knife in its scabbard on the back, and then grabs his bayard.

“Promise?” I mean for my tone to be teasing, but it sounded shockingly genuine and worried when it slipped out from between my lips, causing Keith to look back at me in surprise. I cock an eyebrow at him to try and re-convey the original intent of my tone but it falls short as I fall under the scrutiny of his gaze, my fingers burying into his sheets and holding myself upright on one elbow. 

“You should come with me.” Keith replies, furrowing his eyebrows suddenly as a dark turn twists his tone to seriousness, “I don’t want you to be alone.” 

I challenge him with a raise of my brow, “Then stay in bed with me and you know I won’t be.”

Keith sighs, tugging on his gloves and readjusting their grip as he continues in a military, commanding tone, “... Maybe you can go find Shiro. He might be awake.”

I furrow my eyebrows at him as I sit up slightly in his bed, swinging my feet out from the sheets and letting them grace the floor, “If you want me to leave, you can just say so.” 

Keith blinks at me in surprise before he quickly shakes his head, “What? No- no, I-” His hands fall into clenched fists, his gaze sets on the floor by his now booted feet as he sighs, deeply and heavily, like he’s bearing the world upon his shoulders, “I just don’t want you to be alone. Even if it’s here, where I don’t think he can find you, I’d…” Keith trails off as a cold stone of remembrance re-emerges in my stomach, as I stand upright and face him fully he makes a face at the floor that I can’t quite decipher as he growls under his breath, “I just don’t want you to be alone again.” 

Slowly understanding begins to trickle into my consciousness like poured tea into a babbling brooke. About what this means for Keith. _ It’s about regularity, schedule. And he wants for me to be a part of it. _ “... Alright.” I murmur, reaching out and brushing his hair from his eyes almost habitually. He meets my gaze with muted investigation as I mutter, “Let me go get my gear from my armory, then, and I’ll come with you.” 

Much to my surprise, Keith visibly relaxes at the suggestion. “Thank you.” He murmurs, his shoulders hanging a little lower than before. With that, I lean forward and gently kiss his cheek before heading to the doorway and walking out into the hall, his boots hitting the smooth floor right behind me like the thundering steps of my shadow. 

He waits for me in the lounge while I go into my armory to put on my armor and retrieve my bayard before we head together to the training deck, where we spend a few hours sparring together. 

It’s honestly such a relief. There’s a sense of normalcy when sparring with Keith; it’s just like back when we barely knew each other after we went to the moon to collect my lion, it’s consistent, regular… normal. It’s something I’d grown used to but didn’t realize it was gone until we were back at it again, facing off with the Gladiator. After the chaos of the past few days, the horrible alienation, the amount of times I hungered for company, only to have it in such a benign, habitual,  _ normal  _ way… it’s something else. Keith caught me giving him moony looks in between water breaks and I’d have to laugh it off to resemble the normalcy he projects. I suppose that’s why he insisted I come with him to train; he gets peace out of it, and figured it would for me as well. And it works. So I truly can’t complain about it, not with true fire behind it. Though I still do, a bit forcefully in the playful tone because I want him to know that I’m okay, I’m normal, I’m… whole. 

Just before pre-lunch time, we hear Shiro’s voice over the Castle speakers, “Paladins, report to ground level. Kolivan is disembarking on Olkarion’s main dock shortly.”

I look over my waterbottle at Keith as he immediately tosses his back in the wall tray, I soon follow suit. Without further ado, we move together to answer Shiro summons, heading down to the surface of Olkarion without a word in exchange.

There may come a day where the skyline of Olkarion doesn’t absolutely blow me away, but that day is not today; something about the afternoon sunlight setting the trees aflame in hues of crimson and burning oranges, causing the emerald walls of the towers to gleam, it makes my heart sing and my fingers tingle as I take my first deep breath of oxygen in what feels like years when it really has only been hours, about half a day if I think correctly. I wipe my brow and smile up at the sky as we get off the ship, and immediately I’m met with a familiar voice, “Someone’s looking giddy today.” 

I look up and meet Hunk’s gaze where he stands with Lance and Pidge, Lance’s elbows are perched on his shoulders like they’re posing to be on the cover of a heartthrob band album. They look well rested, jolly, but for some reason their faces are a bit tinged with apprehension as they look over at Keith and I, and I realize that after the past few days it must seem weird that we’re leaving the Castle together. So, I smile over at them and let out a relieved breath, like I was holding it for days, “I uh… I just slept really nicely. How are y’all?”

Lance picks up on my tone real quick and immediately comes over to me, slinging an arm around my shoulders, “I slept like a  _ king!  _ And Hunk made us some more of that Olkarion food stuff and I just-” Lance makes a kissing motion into the air towards the man in question, who flushes and waves him off with an embarrassed noise as Lance continues to lavish him in praise, “My stomach has never been so happy!” 

“I think the Castle food goo just broke you.” Pidge huffs with a smirk, the sunlight gleaming off of her glasses with a mischievous glint. I can’t help but laugh out loud, it’s not even that funny but something about the familiarity of my friends around me… I didn’t realize how alone I’d felt for the past few days. It’s a miracle what one night of cuddling Keith can do. 

Well, that’s not all that happened, but that’s all I care to think about. 

After a brief pause Shiro comes around the bend with Ryner, Coran, and Allura in tow, all of whom appear equally well rested, especially the Princess, much to my relief. I can’t help but analyze her closely once she’s standing still beside Pidge, her arms crossed and her brow set prominently in preparation for the day. She appears to be okay, dare I even say more than okay; the bags are gone from beneath her eyes and the weight on her shoulders that seemed to drag her into Olkarion’s core every day seems gone, or at least alleviated. 

Her eyes settle on me while I’d already been examining her, and her gaze frightens me enough that it snaps me into the present as she lifts her head to speak, “It looks like you’re feeling better.” 

Surprised and a little heartwarmed at her concern, I find myself confused as to what exactly she’s referring to when she says “feeling better”.  _ Does she know about… last night? She couldn’t have, Shiro promised that he wouldn’t have said anything to anyone… she must be talking about when I blacked out, then, yesterday. Right, because  _ **_that_ ** _ happened, too. No wonder Keith said he’s been worried, I’ve been as accident prone as a goddamn human shield.  _

“Yeah, for sure, feeling much stronger now.” I answer vaguely, flickering my gaze between Allura’s sapphire blue eyes to see the light behind them as genuine but still hard;  _ she must still be mad at me for liking Keith. But not angry enough to keep stonewalling me as she’d been stonewalling him. So maybe she’s coming around? Or will soon? Or maybe I can speak to her again about it and she won’t get angry-? _

“That is good, you will need that strength soon.” She replies simply, before she looks away with her head held high as the noon sun beats onto her starlight hair. 

“Let us go and meet with Kolivan at once.” Ryner interjects where they stand with their hands folded, two Olkari aids standing behind them at the ready, for anything I presume, given the last few days’ events. “He needs to be informed of our latest developments, and us of his.” 

“Good plan.” Shiro nods in agreement, and together our grand reception head to the docks via telepad, just as we did several days ago to meet with the first humans we’d seen in a month. Humans that happened to be Damien and two, terrifying women who drew weapons on Keith as soon as they found out he was Galra.  _ That really is, what I’d love to call, unfortunate.  _

I nearly jump out of my skin when Shiro suddenly sidles up next to me, his fingers brush my arm and when I look over at him I can see the caring warmth in his gaze, curious and intent but also concerned. “Hey. How you feeling?” 

I sate him with a smile, “Well rested. You did get some sleep, yeah?” 

Shiro nods with a smile of his own, one that’s so gentle and bright that it warms the depths of my soul to look at, like I’m dozing in the sunlight, “Oh yeah, I slept like the dead.” 

“You know, I never did understand that expression.” We both look up in surprise at Hunk as he taps his fingertips to his chin, “Dead people don’t sleep.” 

“But they  _ do  _ tell tales.” Lance growls with a baritone, before pausing and tapping his chin, “Or… no wait, they  _ don’t  _ tell no tales. That’s it.”

“Oh come on, Hunk,” I joke with a snorting laugh, “Everyone knows that sleeping is just an open relationship with death.” 

This earns me a strange, bemused expression from Hunk and Shiro but one of horror from Allura and Ryner.

“Like a one night stand?” Pidge asks with a crooked grin, cocking an eyebrow at our collective and eliciting a hard laugh from me. 

Shiro, upon seeing the looks on Allura and Ryner’s face, waves his hands with wide eyes and a settling tone, “... Don’t worry about what they’re saying. They’re just kidding around.” 

Lance, Pidge, and I make eye contact and together we smirk with playful lights dancing between us, speaking in unison, “Or  _ are _ we?” 

This makes me laugh like a dumbass fool, but I couldn’t care less to keep up appearances. I’m just so glad to feel normal again. _ Normal! A real human who laughs and makes jokes! Real and human! Fucking glorious! _

When we get to the docks, it’s not hard to spot where the Blades of Marmora are going to be touching down, because it’s the only place that isn’t lively or bustling. Word must have gotten around Olkarion that Galra were coming, not **the** Galra, of course, but Galra nonetheless.  _ Hopefully working together will help change some… perceptions… At least, I hope they do. For Keith’s sake if no one else. _

We’re standing around for only a few minutes before a Blades vessel comes into view. It shares the violet highlights of Galra machines, but its lighter in color, more like a lilac. When it lands, it draws the gazes of most alien figures on the platform who stop their business to stare as two familiar Galra disembark from the vessel. 

“Kolivan, Antok.” Shiro greets with a wave as the pair stride out, stepping forth to shake their hands, “It’s good to see you.”

“I trust you weren’t followed?” Allura asks with furrowed eyebrows, her arms crossed where she stands with what can best be described as a battle-ready stance. 

Kolivan lets his hood fall, freeing the white braid from the back of his neck to hang on his chest like climbing rope. “Our operations have been completely secretive for a thousand years. I can assure you that there is nothing to fear.” 

“It is good that you are here.” Ryner profers politely, moving their hand to the side to the teleplatform we took to get here, “We should speak back in our labs so that we may catch up on our intelligence in private.” 

“That is most wise.” Kolivan responds with a sharp nod. Together, now with our two additional allies in tow, we head back hence we came, away from the prying eyes of the Olkari public, towards the engineering labs. 

Inside the familiar space, we disperse around the table as Kolivan immediately gets down to business once the doors have shut, “How fares progress on the teludav and the gravity generator?” 

Coran pipes up then, twirling his mustache with a proud smile, “With the addition of the quintessence enhancer and the final alignment of the scaultrite lenses underway, it will be finished by this evening. We can launch by tomorrow morning.” 

“Perfect timing.” Antok growls under his breath, loud enough that we all could hear him as Kolivan continues with a systematic measure in his tone, “Yes indeed. We are supposed to hear from Thace later this evening about the hidden part of Zarkon’s vessel. We don’t want go through with the plan with any potential surprises.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms comfortably over his chest, “So you do think that he’s hiding some sort of weapon?”

Kolivan nods, “There is little that Zarkon would keep so hidden besides his attempts at capturing Voltron. Based on past evidence, we think it must be the next step in his plan to seize it.”

I suck in breath and shudder, “So, it’s another ro-beast?” 

Allura, much to my surprise, answers me with a tone of shrouded darkness, “Possibly. Or something far worse.” 

Hunk raises an eyebrow at her with a concerned, scared lilt in his tone, speaking like he’s afraid of the answer to his question, “What could be worse than a ro-beast?”

“You would be surprised the atrocities that Zarkon is willing and able to unleash.” Antok snarls with a base in his voice dropping low and rumbling through my core, causing me to shiver for more reasons than one. 

“It can’t be finished yet, otherwise it would’ve launched.” Keith replies with his arms crossed, I nearly jump in surprise to find that he’s standing directly beside me, if I turned too fast I would’ve hit him.  _ Jesus, he’s a goddamn shadow when he wants to be.  _

Kolivan’s brow furrows as his serpentine pupils flit across Keith’s features, “Perhaps. We cannot be sure until we hear back from Thace tonight.” 

Shiro nods and takes a step forward, tapping on the holographic panel table that rests in the center of the room, “Coran, has the gravity generator been tested yet?” 

The Altean in question nods vigorously, “Slav and I just performed the experiment but a few hours ago. Once again with the power problem, we will likely only be able to have it function for a few hours before it short circuits and falls.” 

Kolivan frowns deeply at this, his clawed hands rest in fists as he speaks to Shiro, “Are you quite certain about the virility of the plan?” 

He nods seriously in response, “Yes. Whether we like it or not, Zarkon and his vessel will be in this system tomorrow afternoon. We need to be ready to end this then, or he  _ will  _ end us.” 

I can’t help but frown and straighten as I hear this, flickering my gaze first from Kolivan then to Shiro. It sounded like  _ Shiro  _ is the one telling us where Zarkon is, not a relaying of information from a prior meeting. I try to rack my brain for some cause before I give up on it and instead fix Shiro with a demanding expression, “How do you know this?” 

The room quiets as Shiro faces me, his expression is set and his gaze is like gray and black fire as he replies starkly, “I can sense him in my dreams. He’s pressing his every resource to hurry and catch us before we escape…” As the darkness of his tone settles over the room, he ignites us with the fires in his eyes as he states with stable ferocity, “But this time, it’ll be him who is falling into  _ our  _ trap.” 

Lance beams at this and obviously can’t help but interject with a wicked smirk, “Heck yeah! And the hunter becomes the hunted!” He glances over to his left where Keith stands beside me and his smile broadens, “That’s like, the greatest line in all of my favorite movies.” 

Keith gives him a tired look but otherwise doesn’t respond, it would’ve made me laugh if I wasn’t stressed about the idea of Shiro seeing Zarkon in his dreams.  _ And appearing no different in the mornings after. What kind of dreams are they? Are they like the stone dreams that Hunk and Pidge are having? I wish he’d talk to me about them. Maybe I could help…  _

Ryner faces Shiro after we all soaked in Lance’s helpful statement, “I know it is important that you and the Paladins are ready for tomorrow, but if you would please, keep your lions near the teludav. It will need all of the quintessence it can get before tomorrow’s strike.” 

“Of course.” Shiro nods briskly in response.

Kolivan turns to Allura with a working attitude written in his furry features, “If we may head to the Castle, I have a few transmissions to send through the chip I gave you to my people.” 

Allura’s features harden and she stares at the Galra with an ambivalent expression, twisting into herself a blank slate before she mutely nods, “You may… But I have already spoken with Ryner about your lodgings for the evening.” 

_ Oh. Ouch. Polite way of saying ‘you’re not invited into the Castle for longer than you are needed’.  _

Shiro frowns at this but to my surprise he doesn’t argue, as per usual Antok’s masked face shows nothing and Kolivan’s expression may as well be a mask for how much he’s emoting. It makes me wonder at how they must be feeling; I can’t imagine Allura treating the Olkari this way, not even a little, and the Blades have been just as instrumental in the plan.

Hunk swoops in to save the day as the awkward silence began to fester, “No hard feelings, it’s just that Sendak kinda corrupted the Castle really bad after he was there for a night, and we don’t need anything bad to happen the day before the big day, you know?” 

Kolivan does not answer him, he merely scans Hunk’s expression mutely as Ryner follows up with a more amicable tone, as in to say professional, “Yes, we have arranged for your quarters to be just next to the Castle, not far from here. If you’ll allow me, I will show them to you now and then we may go to the Castle for these transmissions you must send.”

Kolivan nods respectfully, given the circumstances, as he, Antok, Ryner, Allura, and Coran sweep from the room and back towards the Castle. No sooner after he’s gone does Lance sigh dismally, “Man, I kinda feel bad for the Marmarites.”

“Marmarites?” Pidge echoes with an incredulous raise in her brow, crossing her arms as she examines Lance with a  _ seriously?  _ expression. 

“Yeah, Marmarites! Blade of Marmora… Marmarites!” Lance protests, pouting a little as he seeks to defend himself, or rather his choice of phrase. 

“Don’t worry, she’ll come around.” Shiro murmurs as he briefly examines each of us in turn, “The Galra have been her enemy for the past thousand years. She just needs some more time.” 

_ Yes, but how much time can we afford to give her?  _

The question haunts me as Shiro continues without a pause, “Now, we’ve got a big day tomorrow and I want to make sure that we are all in top form, even without our lions. Let’s hit the training deck.” 

Pidge and Lance both groan in unison, “But  _ Shiro, _ ” Pidge pouts, furrowing her eyebrows at the Paladin in question, but before she can get a word in edgewise Shiro interrupts her with a finger poised in the air. “It’s not what you think.” 

This garners her attention, as she and Lance both silence as Shiro continues, “I want us to do the group work exercises Coran had us do in the first week. The invisible maze, the mental fusion… It’ll make sure we are all working together as we’re supposed to before we face off with Zarkon tomorrow.” 

Hunk lets out a relieved breath, “Phew, I like it, great idea, Shiro. Certainly beats getting beat up by the Gladiator again.” 

I can’t help but snort to myself at this as we make our way together back towards the Castle.  _ Great, more training! Let’s go! Not like I’ve already been training all damn morning… Curse you, Keith.  _

… 

Training, while not physically intensive, wears us out just the same because it requires effort. Going through the invisible maze, listening actively to whoever is guiding, and then mentally forming Voltron with the simulator; it’s just as exhausting as actually forming the damn thing. So meaning to say that by the time evening rolls around, we’re all pretty happy when Shiro calls it a night. 

“That’s it! I’m going to sleep and I’m going to nap for a thousand years!” Lance proclaims as we collapse around the lounge by the hangers, grateful to be done and relaxing our limbs outside of our suits of armor, which my skin is more than happy to be out of. 

“Speak for yourself, I’m probably not gonna be able to sleep tonight!” Hunk answers with a loud raspberry where he lays flat on the floor, his feet kicked up on the couch cushions, “I mean, we’re facing off against the forces of evil and stuff tomorrow, just in case you forgot.” 

“Oh. Well, yeah, I mean, we kinda do that everyday.” Lance responds with a shrug, his long arms spread out on the tops of the cushions with his feet kicked forward onto the middle table. Next to me Keith has his head resting on the back of the couch cushions, his eyes are closed and he looks to be for all intents and purposes asleep. The only hint of his consciousness is the flicker of his eyelids occasionally at the sound of Lance’s voice. I find myself sinking into the cushions beside him, relaxing my muscles and allowing for the cool air to soak into my skin and soothe the beginnings of anxiety that have begun to worm under my skin.  _ Right. Facing off against the forces of evil tomorrow. That’s… a thing. For tomorrow, Will, for tomorrow, don’t forget it’s tomorrow, no use freaking out now…  _

The door behind us opens, and Pidge across from me waves with a relieved exhale, “Oh, great, you’re here! I was wondering when you’d show up.”

My body stiffens when a familiar voice purrs, “Yeah, sorry, I had to deal with some stuff on my end.” Within seconds I’m wide awake and alert, I turn around and immediately flinch when Damien’s hand winds into my hair and his voice coos, “How you doing, angel?” 

I don’t get even a single second to react or think before Keith beside me starts to his feet and sucker punches him across the mouth. 

The room erupts. Lance is on his feet, shouting for Keith as he surges forward and takes Damien down to the ground like it’s a frat fight, Hunk and Pidge back out of the way as Shiro too moves forward and I barely have the consciousness to even think, nevertheless act as Keith clobbers two more punches straight into Damien’s nose before Lance hauls him off. “Keith! Keith, dude, relax!”

“What the heck was that?!” Pidge proclaims as she rushes forward, kneeling at Damien’s side as he sits upright and holds his nose, bloodied and already blossoming violet under his hands, “That came out of nowhere!” She shouts.

Damien spits on the smooth white floors and it’s laced with blood that is smeared on his teeth, he looks up with a vicious, angry gaze I recognize innately and I cringe even as it’s not targeted on me, but on a barely restrained Keith, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Keith strains against Lance’s hold but his long arms have the advantage of leverage, keeping him firmly pressed against his chest like he’s holding onto a feral cat.

Shiro steps in before anything else can be said. He grabs Damien by the front of his shirt and hauls him to his feet, none-too-gently might I add, and sets him on his feet before he speaks with quick barks, “Stow it cadets!” He checks Damien’s shoulder just as he’s about to push past him to get at Keith, shooting him such a rock solid glare I can’t believe it doesn’t make blood swell on Damien’s skin. “Listen,  _ Mitchell…  _ Now isn’t a good time.” He flickers his gaze to an incredulous Pidge, who looks to be two seconds away from fighting somebody as well with the way her fists are clenched, then back to Damien, “You should leave.”

Only now glacially coming to my senses do I back up then fall back to Keith’s side where he’s held by Lance, flickering my gaze to his briefly before settling a hand on Keith’s shoulder as he seethes against Lance’s hold on him. To my relief when I touch him he seems to simmer, he glances over at me with furrowed, uncomprehending eyebrows, and now feeling Keith relax Lance decides to release him He shakes his arms out from where Lance was holding him as Lance looks over his shoulder at me and raises an eyebrow, clearly asking  _ what the fuck is going on. _

I pretend not to notice it, instead keeping a hand on Keith to hold him still as Pidge rises to a still-bleeding Damien’s defense, “Hey, no fair! He was going to help me find Matt, and you’re going to throw him out of here just because of some- some stupid love triangle?!” 

I flinch as silence falls, but I sink deep into my own skin when Damien’s gaze finally settles on me and it’s like the world blackens and fades from view as the eyes of a deadly serpent zero in on the thief of its stolen treasures. 

I manage take a shaky, terrified breath right as Keith lunges forward with a yowl, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He whirls towards me and the sheer rage teeming across every facet of his being is so tangible it almost reaches me where I stand on a precipice of terror, my heart jumps in my throat as he suddenly snarls, “Tell them! Tell them what he did to you!”

“Keith-” Shiro’s tone is hard and full of warning as he whirls on Keith with his hands raised in apprehension but for the first time since I’ve ever met Keith he ignores Shiro and continues with the voice of a raging dragon, his gaze zeroing in on me as he hisses, “I’ll tell them if you don’t!” 

My voice dies. My throat constricts, my eyes fuzz out, and I barely realize that I’m a living breathing person as the silence burns the edges of my thoughts. I’m only barely aware of Keith’s voice as he snarls, jabbing a finger towards Damien, “He’s been hurting him ever since he stepped foot on this planet! Will was in a  _ pod  _ last night because he beat him so bad!”

At some point I return to the room, only to find all eyes digging into my skin, searching for evidence, seeking validation for the truth, for the lies. I want to crawl out of it, let it stay posted for them to scrutinize as I run into the Olkari forests and never emerge. 

“Is… Is that true?” Pidge asks with wide eyes, her hazel hues like amber in the harsh white overhead lights.  _ Is it true?  _

Considering the past twenty four hours, I can’t believe that I have any tears to spare, but standing there, in front of the whole team with the truth being ripped out like a rug from beneath my feet, they find themselves re-emerging. I sniffle and choke back on them like my life depends on it with only minor success, I feel the hot water stream down without my consent and I have to wipe my eyes to sate the flow.  _ Stop it. Stop it, you’re acting like a weak, pathetic- _

Damien immediately scoffs with evident disbelief, “Oh come on, give me a  _ break  _ with the waterworks, princess, is  _ that  _ what you told them? Couldn’t face your own failure, could you?” 

Lance furrows his eyebrows, his tone darkens so much so that it almost sounds like Keith’s, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Damien rolls his eyes, sniffing as the blood from what I can see now is a split lip begins to clot and he can see and breathe again without choking on his own blood. “He tripped and fell down those stairs outside while we were talking.” Damien narrowed his eyes at me and growls accusingly as he lies through his teeth, “ _ ‘I beat you up’-  _ that’s what you told them? So desperate to try and get it on with emo half-breed over here that you’d lie to your team?” 

Keith snarls like a wild animal and surges forward but before his fist can connect something in me snaps and I find myself catching his arm and yanking him back, much to his shock as he immediately settles when he sees that it’s me that’s holding him. I can’t speak, I can barely breathe, but whatever look is in my eyes tells Keith to stop well enough so I just leave it at that. I release him only to wipe my eyes as more tears start to fall without my consent,  _ stop crying, stop crying, stop _ **_fucking_ ** _ crying-  _

“No.” We all start in surprise when Hunk speaks for the first time since the first punch was thrown. He stares resolutely at Damien, then at me with such an intense gaze that I immediately wilt like foil beneath it, “Will wouldn’t lie about that. He wouldn’t have stayed quiet if that was what this was about.” 

The room is deafeningly quiet. I clench my hands into shaking fists, trying desperately to keep myself from sobbing on the spot but I’m getting dangerously close, it’s the simple chaos of the moment that has my head spinning, nothing is happening but  _ everything  _ is happening, the team knows, everyone knows, they all know about me and about- 

Pidge turns towards Damien with a look of betrayal clearly evident in her eyes and my first instinct is to apologize; I feel like I’m ruining her chance to find her brother but based on the stoicness of her tone, that’s the last of her concerns at the moment, “Why would you do that?” She asks simply, her glasses glint like sundials. Like she genuinely wants to know.

Damien looks at her, Shiro, Hunk, Lance, each in turn before flickering his gaze between Keith and I before he scoffs again, loudly proclaiming, “You don’t  _ seriously  _ believe him, do you? After all he’s lied about?” I flinch as he points a finger at me, “He’s a chronic  _ liar,  _ that’s what he  _ does.  _ You’re just feeding into -”

“Shut up.” The entire room silences as Shiro snarls, and for the first time since I’ve known him Damien listens, and shuts up. My heart trembles. 

“You need to leave.” Shiro continues with a dark undertone, as if he’s seconds away from jabbing him in the throat with his prosthetic fist, “Now.”

The air seems to hum with the tension of the room, but it all but snaps deep inside my throat as realization begins to take hold and I can think again.  _ He… I think he lost.  _

_ The team believes me. They think… they don’t hate me. They hate  _ **_him._ ** _ Just as I do. They are trying to protect me because they believe me because Damien finally  _ **_lost._ **

Damien pauses and stares at the collective before him. I watch as he goes through the five stages of grief, hovering over anger and bargaining for a long time before his jaw clenches when he realizes he’s lost.  _ He lost.  _

So Damien turns on heel to leave, but apprehension immediately seizes my veins when he hesitates, immediately I know that he can’t lose without a little something else, of course he can’t can’t leave without having the last word. He stays still by the doorway of the lounge, silhouetted in a sickly blue by the Altean lights My heart leaps to my throat in terror as he pauses and turns back with a devious, icy glint in his eyes, but to my surprise they don’t lock on mine.

“Hey, emo boy-“ He purrs, but Keith cuts him off while glares at him with such a hateful gaze that it actually curdles my blood. “Piss off and die.” The grit teeth and the fire between them is so tangible I can feel the heat rolling off of Keith in waves. I’ve never felt his emotion so tangibly before, but the same goes for everyone in the room. I can feel Hunk is cold, something I’d never thought to be possible before now, Pidge is shaking, confused, furious, Shiro is a stone wall with only one crack, and that crack is his prosthetic clenched into a fist, Lance is silent and deadly and that terrifies me about as much as Damien’s grin does.

Damien doesn’t seem too affected by the venom in Keith’s words, as he merely clucks his tongue on the roof of his mouth in a disappointed manner, “All I was gonna say was you’re gonna wanna be careful with him.” His gaze flickers to mine with the guise of a victorious, smug gladiator and I shake like a leaf on a dwindling branch. “… He’s a little broken.” 

_ He’s a little broken _

_ Broken.  _

My vision goes red. All the hatred, all the fear, it all boils in my veins and into my mouth with the coppery taste of blood and salt from the drying tears and I’m moving before I can think. I vaguely hear someone calling out as I push past Keith without a second thought and as Damien turns his back on me, but nothing short of divine intervention could stop my advance. 

As soon as I’m close enough, I strike. 

Damien glances back with a raised eyebrow when he hears my name being called, just late enough so that he can’t stop me but just long enough that I get the dark satisfaction of the shock flickering in his eyes when I punch him straight in the jaw. Immediately I get a jarring pain up my arm but my punch brings him to his knees; I am filled to the brim with warm, black satisfaction. My knuckles sting, but I’ve never felt so _ fucking alive.  _

Damien’s face is turned towards the floor, and he spits onto the floor and I see that it’s laced with more blood; I reopened the cut on his mouth. 

Something dark inside me rises, bubbling forth within me like lava and I grab the front of his shirt. He makes a noise as his face is lifted from the ground and punch him again on the side of his head. He keels and makes a noise of shock as thunder rocks my being at the sound as he drops back to the less than pristine floors, marred with his corrupted blood.

_ I want to hit him. I want to beat him into a pulp. I want to rip out his throat with my teeth and watch him bleed, I want to make him suffer like he made me suffer and I want to watch every fucking second of it.  _

_ I want to kill him.  _

_ For good, this time.  _

But then Damien’s light blue eyes rise and meet mine and I see the same light behind them as last night, as all those years I was with him; barely controlled and barely hidden dark satisfaction masked with rage, and that’s when it hits me.

_ He  _ **_wants_ ** _ me to beat him. That’s why he’s not fighting back. He could fight back and make this a fair fight but he isn’t, he’s just looking at me with those eyes like glaciers. He planted this hatred inside me… He  _ **_wants_ ** _ me to  _ **_become_ ** _ him. _

This realization saps away my rage like ice to a burn. I feel my fist stall in the air, and slowly, like a feather, it falls to my side, and the hall is so silent I can hear my pulse hammering in my fingertips. Damien curls his lip as he watches me do this, but he doesn’t speak. There’s a second bleeding cut on his lip, mirroring the other from Keith. 

Finally, I speak in a low, measured tone, and for the first time my voice doesn’t even remotely shake, “You’re going to go to the hanger. And you are going to take the surface projector down to Olkarion, and you’re  _ never  _ coming back on this ship. I don’t care where you go, but you are not staying here.” 

Damien’s mouth gapes like that of a fish out of water, but I cut him off him before he can interrupt me,  _ “I’m not done.” _ I snarl. His jaw slowly closes. 

My rage is tangible, dripping in frothing hatred with every word I hiss, “If you ever step on this ship again- hell, if I ever see your goddamn  _ face _ again, you better get on your knees and start praying.” I can feel tears welling in my eyes and my voice cracks, but I spit out the words solely powered by the fire in my belly, “Because there are some things that only God can forgive.” 

I stare directly into Damien’s iced eyes. He’s silent, and his eyes flicker to my clenched fist at my side. He reaches out and as he touches my wrist with a pleading expression, an act of a desperate man, and I hear the others behind me tense with rapid footsteps in my direction, but I react before they can act, I wrench my hand from his grip like a bolt of lightning, but as much as I ache to, I don’t punch him again. That’s what he wants.  _ I’m done doing what he wants.  _

Damien stares at me with wide eyes, shocked and for once I glare back at him with all of the burning fury I’ve had bottled for so long. 

Slowly, he rises to his feet, and I don’t move. I’m a cliff face before a tempest, and for once I don’t tremble despite the tears that stream down my cheeks.

He turns, and he walks away, disappearing around the corner of the hall. 

I stare at the space he once was for minutes, hours, until a hand on my shoulder returns me to my body once more. A body that’s mine, marred and beaten but here, present, human and alive after doing the most terrifying thing of my whole life.

When I look up through the tears I see Shiro, and then close behind him my friends huddled in with worried expressions, watching me with anxiety etched into their eyes. Lance is beside him, his brow is furrowed.

“I’m so sorry we didn’t notice, dude.” Lance sniffles, much to my shock. I blink and wipe my eyes to see that he’s gritting his teeth, not quite crying but it’s evident that he is nonetheless very upset as he growls, “I’m sorry we didn’t help you.” 

I frown a little and shake my head. For some reason I feel calmer, less like I’m about to shake into a thousand pieces of Will, but still incredibly fragile, I worry that if I touch Lance too indirectly that my hand will break off. But I don’t care. I’m done being afraid, and that includes this. I step towards him and touch his shoulder, gripping it tightly as I mutter, “It isn’t your fault. Nor was it your duty.” 

“Yeah, but we’re friends!” Hunk proclaims suddenly, I choke on my tongue as he suddenly rushes forward and wraps me up in a tight hug, “We never should’ve doubted you, man!”

Fresh tears amount but for a whole new reason, this time they build and burn instead of ice and melt, happy teardrops spring outwards as the warmth and compatriotism of my friends engulfs me. Lance’s arms suddenly join Hunk’s, then Pidge’s as she shouts, “I can’t believe I trusted that jerk! I wish I got to punch him, too!” 

I laugh loud and hard as Keith joins the huddle and then finally Shiro wraps around us from the outside, smiling softly as he murmurs in a gentle, sweet tone, “It’ll be alright. You’ll be okay, and so will we. I’m proud of you, Will.” 

I shake my head and laugh again, this time when the team breaks away from me I wipe my eyes of the gleeful tears and wave a hand vaguely towards them, “This… this wasn’t me. I… I never could have done any of this without you. Standing up to-” My voice shakes and for once I let it; we’re so off the deep end of emotional vulnerability that I just let it happen, what’s the use of hiding it any longer? “... I never could have done it if you all hadn’t believed me. Believed  _ in  _ me.” 

Lance snorts and juts a thumb to his left, “Well, it was mostly Keith’s doing. Him being angry and punching things really spelled it all out to me.” He smirks broadly, a little too broadly, at the scowling Keith beside him, and despite it being not really a joke at all I still laugh simply out of ecstasy for the moment. 

“We’re still proud of you, buddy.” Hunk profers, smiling genuinely with his calf-brown eyes alight with gentle warmth, “It takes guts to stand up to people.”

“We’re always gonna believe in you.” Keith’s voice snatches my attention fully, encompassing him entirely in my gaze as I tunnel upon him. His words reverberate in my soul, cast a shadow and build a monument, and it takes everything in me in that moment not to surge forward to tackle him to the ground, to punch him or to kiss him I’m unsure, because  _ goddamnit you started all of this you fucking bastard… but I never would have been given this opportunity to stand up to Damien, for myself, if he hadn’t… well, did the worst thing I thought he could possibly do.  _

_ That all happened so, so fast. _

That’s when it all settles in and hits me at once.  _ I did it. I told him off. He’s really gone. _

Yet, as I stand there with my friends around me, the warmth doesn’t dig as deep as I wish it would. As I think it should. My heart still flutters in terror, my hands shake.  _ I still feel just as ill at ease as before.  _

_ It’ll always feel this way, won’t it? I’ll always be marked by him. Marred and cracked with scars that will never fully heal. Breaks that will ache when the weather is bad.  _

Much to my surprise, this doesn’t fill me with cold horror or hot rage. Rather… understanding. Frustration, but ultimately understanding. 

_ He showed me the thunder and the rain that runs in my veins, through him and the help of my friends I found a strength within me that I’ve never known. He hurt me, but… maybe he also made me stronger. He didn’t break me. He tried, but instead it enforced me with titanium.  _

_ I never was broken. And now, I never will be.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did it! I edited it!  
> I initially posted this chapter but the ending was too quick for me initially so I took it down to redo at a later date when I had time, and that day is today at 4am! Yeet college life!   
> Now to reward you wonderful readers with some wholesome love in the coming chapter before i utterly destroy you all again. :)


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